2020 Holiday sales wrap-up

Challenged by a pandemic and an unstable economy, online and brick-and-mortar retailers scrambled to salvage the 2020 holiday shopping season. Most merchants started offering discounts much earlier than in previous years to accommodate the changed shopping dynamics.
This is my third consecutive holiday sales wrap-up, following installments for 2018 and 2019.
Research firms defined the 2020 holiday season as the months of November and December (through Christmas Day). Early online discounts diminished the impact of the Cyber 5 — Thanksgiving Day through Cyber Monday — which, according to Adobe Analytics, saw an increase in online sales in the U.S. of 21 percent over 2019. This compares to a 32-percent online increase over 2019 for the entire U.S. 2020 holiday shopping season. Adobe examined more than 1 trillion visits to American-based ecommerce websites. Read more…