Leading
About ten years ago, when ecommerce was still about 10% of retail and consumers were just gaining confidence in buying stuff from their phones, Q4 was a leading indicator of where the market was headed.
Every Q4, without fail, conversion rates would spike, mobile would take another huge bite out of desktop’s traffic share share, and some third, random behavioral change would happen. And every Q1, without fail, there’d be a slight regression to the mean, but the trend was clear: when consumers did their holiday shopping, they changed their behavior pretty much for good.
A lot has changed since then. Shopify’s GMV in 2014, for instance, was $3.8B. They 2.5X’d that figure this BFCM alone.
Because of ecomm’s growth, Q4 isn’t quite the compass it used to be—at least as it relates to how people are buying. That ship has sailed
What it does appear to be, though, is a compass of where people are buying.
Last year, we noted that returning customers drove BFCM’s growth in DTC. This year, you’re hearing more of that from agencies and ESPs alike.
Perhaps part of that is because acquisition just costs more. Perhaps part of that is because brands are focused more on retention.
Regardless of why more people are talking about this, it’s happening. In DTC at least, existing customers are driving BFCM growth.
If history is any indicator, it’ll soon be reality throughout the rest of the year.