Online Holiday Sales Predicted To Hit All-Time High

It figures to be a merry Christmas for online retailers this year.

At least, according to a holiday season shopping forecast by eMarketer that predicts that online holiday sales will total more than 10 percent of all U.S. holiday sales this season, the highest percentage of online holiday sales ever recorded.

According to the forecast, online sales will increase 3.3 percent this year to $884.50 billion. That’s an increase of $94.71 billion from last holiday season and will amount to 10.7 percent of all holiday retail sales this year.

“Amazon continues to be powerful driver of eCommerce,” according to eMarketer retail analyst Yory Wurmser. “Last year, it accounted for over a quarter of online holiday sales, according to NetElixir. It should be even higher this year, as Amazon’s revenue growth continues to outpace eCommerce growth as a whole.”

Mobile online holiday sales also continue to grow at a rapid rate, with mobile online sales expected to grow by 43.2 percent in 2016 to $115.92 billion. That’s going to amount to 29.1 percent of all online sales and 2.4 percent of all retail sales for the holiday season.

“We’re still in the early part of the smartphone commerce revolution, and the development of better app search, payment systems and commerce on new platforms should propel sales strongly in 2017,” according to Wurmser.

But mobile sales will represent almost half of all online retail sales by 2020, according to eMarketer, with mobile online sales expected to beat online sales on tablets for the first time in 2016, amounting to $67.23 billion in holiday sales.