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~ Topic Special ~

TOPIC SPECIAL:

HOLIDAY SEASON

Text: Sanne Leenders // Photos: Oct8ne, Pattern, Ivan Samkov - Pexels

very year, there are a number of relevant themes that lend themselves to e-commerce and cross-border
selling. To take a deeper look, we would like to introduce our latest rubric, the Topic Special. This
ETopic Special deals with the most relevant topics by means of a Q&A with experts on in-depth issues
within the topic. In this issue, we will be discussing the holiday season since days such as Black Friday,
Cyber Monday and Christmas are slowly creeping around the corner. Ilaria Carboni, Marketing Manager at
Oct8ne, and Torsten Schaefer, Country Manager at Pattern Germany, give us a closer look into e-commerce
sales and preparations during the holiday season.

ILARIA CARBONI, TORSTEN SCHAEFER,
MARKETING MANAGER AT OCT8NE COUNTRY MANAGER GERMANY AT PATTERN

WHAT SHOPPING TRENDS DO YOU EXPECT TO SEE WHAT SHOPPING TRENDS DO YOU EXPECT TO
DURING THE HOLIDAYS THIS YEAR? SEE DURING THE HOLIDAYS THIS YEAR?
2020 has forced us to spend plenty of time at Various markets in Europe were in lockdown
home, and consequently, we all spent more time over the peak trading period in 2020 – and
in front of laptops and mobile devices. That said, physical stores were closed – and so retailers
online purchases will surely keep on growing, and should be wary of using last year’s trading figures
most of them will be done via mobile devices. as a plan for predicting demand this holiday season.
They need to separate long-term increases in demand from the
spikes that were driven purely by store closures or bad weather, as we would
only expect to see similar trends in demand if stores are once again closed.
Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales have been spread out more in the week
running up to Black Friday and the whole week of Cyber Monday – we expect
this trend to continue. This is a combination of retailers trying to attract
spend before their competitors and retailers spreading out the peak so that
their fulfilment operations can cope with the spike in demand. Last year,
Amazon ran Prime Day in mid-October, but it has already taken place this
year, and so discounting and promotions are likely to be more focused on the
WHAT ARE YOUR PREDICTIONS FOR THE HOLIDAYS THIS YEAR, TAKING THE Black Friday and Cyber Monday weekend, with retailers trying to maintain
RECENT GROWTH IN E-COMMERCE INTO CONSIDERATION? full-price sales prior to that.
Considering that many countries, due to COVID prevention measures,
don’t allow purchasing in brick and mortar stores, the number of online
purchases and online pick up (BOPUS) will surely increase during the WHAT ARE YOUR PREDICTIONS FOR THE HOLIDAYS THIS YEAR, TAKING THE
holiday season. This past year has drastically changed consumers’ habits. RECENT GROWTH IN E-COMMERCE INTO CONSIDERATION?
They got used to buying online and now prefer to buy online, avoiding This depends on the COVID situation and whether restrictions on physical
crowds and long queues, especially during holidays seasons. stores are back in place by then. Last year was an exceptionally strong Q4
online because of store closures, and so retailers may not achieve year-on-
year sales increases online. However, they should definitely see growth on
their 2019 holiday sales – maybe as much as 25% to 50% growth on their
sales two years ago if they are running an established online shop - if they
have acquired new customers in 2020 who have become more confident
buying online [cont. on the next page]

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