Peak Season Ecommerce Guide to Navigating the Busiest Retail Months

We’re nearing the end of 2024, which means peak holiday shopping season is already upon us.

Wait…how did that happen?

Ignoring the slow but ever present march of time for a moment, it’s time for retailers to get ready for what’s sure to be one of the busiest shopping seasons on record. Traditional shopping milestones like Black Friday, once a single-day event, are now week-long shopping extravaganzas. According to eMarketer, total sales during the 2024 holiday season are expected to reach over $1.3 trillion, with roughly 20% of holiday sales happening online.

Understanding what the ecommerce peak season looks like can help you plan your holiday retail strategy appropriately. In this post, we chart the key holidays and shopping days and provide best practices for reaching customers during this hectic time of year.  

What is Peak Season Ecommerce?

Peak season ecommerce is the period just after Halloween which occurs the fourth week in October through January 2nd . The holidays extend into January this year because Hanukkah falls later than usual. Here are the major peak season holidays:

🎃Halloween – October 31, 2024

• Halloween marks the first significant sales peak of the season and it’s already behind us. Retailers begin preparing for increased demand for seasonal items as early as late August. This includes decorations for Halloween and seasonal decor for autumn. Early holiday shoppers are already out in force by the end of October. 

🪔Diwali – November 2, 2024

• Diwali is one of India’s most important holidays and is celebrated around the world. The Festival of Lights presents a major opportunity for retailers serving global markets. Since it arrives early in the peak season, insights from Diwali shopping behavior can help retailers gauge consumer sentiment and shopping patterns for the upcoming holidays.

🧍 Singles’ Day – November 11, 2024

• Originally a Chinese shopping holiday, Singles’ Day has transformed into another large global shopping event.  Alibaba popularized Singles’ Day ecommerce event in 2009. The success of Singles’ Day often sets the tone for Black Friday and Cyber Monday performance. Many retailers now extend this into “Singles’ Week” to maximize sales potential. 

🦃 Thanksgiving—November 28, 2024

• Celebrated in the U.S. on the fourth Thursday of November, Thanksgiving kicks off the official start of the holiday shopping season. From an ecommerce perspective, it marks the first of the “Cyber Five” peak season shopping days (we go into that in more detail, below). Many physical stores open for a few hours on Thanksgiving day and sales—both online and off—begin surging as deals and events draw holiday shoppers in.

🎄 Christmas – December 25, 2024

• Bells will be ringing and shoppers will be clicking for the season’s grand finale. While the shopping activity traditionally peaks in December, many consumers now start their Christmas shopping as early as October. In 2023, the final stretch before Christmas saw substantial growth in both online and in-store shopping. December 23rd emerged as one of the highest-volume shopping days according to Square.

🕎 Hanukkah – December 25, 2024 – January 2, 2025

• In 2024, Hanukkah overlaps with Christmas, creating a concentrated period of holiday shopping. This overlap presents unique opportunities for retailers to serve multiple holiday shoppers simultaneously. The holiday also extends in January—not an uncommon occurrence since Hanukkah is an 8-day event that’s based on the Hebrew Calendar.

🎁 Boxing Day – December 26, 2024

• Particularly significant in English-speaking countries (most notably the UK), Boxing Day has evolved into a major post-Christmas shopping event. Retailers use this day to clear seasonal inventory and capture sales from gift card redemptions. It’s also become a pivotal day for processing returns and exchanges, with consumers increasingly expecting seamless omnichannel return options.

When Should You Start Preparing for Peak Season?

During peak season, consumer demand is at its highest. Knowing the most important holidays can help you plan, but so does knowing peak demand, as measured by consumer spending on ecommerce channels. Last year shoppers spent over $200 billion during peak ecommerce season. This year it’s looking like we’re going to spend at least as much and likely more. According to eMarketer, the Cyber Five—five shopping days that kick off with Thanksgiving—made up 16.2% of total US holiday retail ecommerce sales in 2023. 

Here’s what you need to know about each of these days:

🦃 Thanksgiving – Thursday, November 28, 2024

• America’s Thanksgiving holiday kicks off the Cyber Five with significant online sales. Last year, Thanksgiving Day brought in $5.90 billion in online revenue.

🛍️ Black Friday – Friday, November 29, 2024

• The traditional start of holiday shopping has evolved into a hybrid online/offline event. Black Friday 2023 generated $10.47 billion in online sales, making it the second-highest-revenue day of the Cyber Five. Many retailers now extend Black Friday deals across an entire week or more. 

🏬 Small Business Saturday – Saturday, November 30, 2024

• Not to be outdone by the big guys, local and smaller retailers created Small Business Saturday to compete with the Amazons and Targets of the world. This day generated $5.37 billion in online sales in 2023. Smaller local retailers promote the day by reaching out to their customers and communities, offering sales, and hosting events.

🦸 Sunday – Sunday, December 1, 2024

• You’d think shoppers would be depleted after the previous three hyper-charged events, but the bridge between Small Business Saturday and Cyber Monday brought in $5.13 billion in 2023. The Sunday sandwiched between these two events doesn’t have a fancy name. Maybe we should give it one. How about Super Sunday? People are poised for deals and Super Sunday™ brings many gifting hopefuls out in full force. 

🛒 Cyber Monday – Monday, December 2, 2024

• The grand finale of the Cyber Five consistently ranks as the biggest online shopping day of the year. In 2023, Cyber Monday sales hit $13.23 billion—a third of Cyber Five retail ecommerce sales. It was also the biggest day ever for Buy Now, Pay Later services. Shoppers spending $940 million using BNPL to get their holiday gifts.

Peak Season Ecommerce Tips for Success

Nearly 70% of consumers start with the search bar on a retailer’s website or app.  With hundreds of billions in revenue influenced annually by customer experiences, it’s clear that success during peak season depends on more than just great deals. Here are some tips to ensure you’re prepared for the surge of shoppers to come. 

1. Make site search intuitive

Your website’s search bar is also your virtual front door. You can lose shoppers when search produces irrelevant or overwhelming results (or no results at all). To work well for busy holiday shoppers, site search needs to go beyond basic keyword matching to understand user intent and context. This makes shopping more intuitive, which is exactly what holiday shoppers want.

Boost search capabilities with autocomplete suggestions based on behavioral data, visual results as visitors type. This helps mobile shoppers, which at this point is most ecommerce shoppers. It also helps you tie digital channels to your retail merchandising strategy by prioritizing product ranking in the search results.

2. Do your research

Last year’s peak season performance provides a wealth of insight about winning products and categories. Electronics, apparel, furniture, toys, and household goods dominated 2023’s holiday sales, according to Amazon and Adobe data. Per Adobe, spending on electronics reached $50.8 billion in sales in 2023, followed by apparel at $41.5 billion, and furniture at $27.3 billion. 

Understanding broader consumer buying trends is a start, but you should also study your own data including sales and site search data to understand what your customers want. On-site searches can reveal patterns in shopping behavior and highlight gaps in your product inventory and availability. Use this information to inform your merchandising approach for peak season. 

3. Prepare for the mobile uprising 

Peak season 2023 marked a historic shift in shopping channels—with mobile devices driving more than half of all online spending. Per Adobe, shoppers spent a record $113.5 billion via mobile during November and December, 51.1% of total holiday purchases. Mobile shopping peaks during major sales events, so your site needs to deliver a flawless mobile experience.

That means straightforward, simple navigation, easy checkout, and blindingly fast load times. Make it easy for smartphone users to search in your app and on your website with search features like autocomplete and results filtering which helps shoppers refine results quickly and avoid overwhelm.

4. Give shoppers the deals they want

Peak 2023 season shoppers showed clear preferences when it comes to deals, preferring straightforward percentage-based discounts and targeted deep discounts. Start your promotional calendar early, before Black Friday, and focus on clear, compelling offers that incorporate deep discounts on specific items. Consider free shipping promotions too as this continues to be a shopper favorite.

5. Offer lots of payment options

Holiday shoppers want options when it comes to paying for gifts. Buy now, pay later (BNPL) services hit record popularity during the 2023 peak season. Last year,  shoppers used BNPL to the tune of $16.6 billion throughout November and December. But BNPL isn’t the only alternative payment method gaining ground. 

Digital wallets, mobile payments, and QR code payments are becoming standard expectations. Aim to remove friction from the checkout process by offering multiple ways for people to pay. Afterpay, which allows shoppers to pay off large (or even not-so-large) purchases in installments is another popular option, according to Square. Make sure your payment options are clearly displayed throughout the shopping journey, from product pages to checkout.

6. Keep returns as painless as possible

Returns are an inevitable part of the retail ecosystem, both online and off. Last year’s retail returns ballooned to more than $627 billion and returns are expected to exceed $930 billion in 2024. Don’t wait until after the holidays to figure out how you’ll handle the influx. Make your return policy prominent and easy to understand. 

Consider extending return windows for holiday purchases—and make sure the returns experience is a smooth one across all channels. As with payment options, more is better here. Make it easy for online shoppers to return items in-store or by mail. Give them multiple drop-off points and QR codes for easy-as-possible processing. 

7. Make it personal, within reason 

Personalization, which uses data and AI to connect shoppers to relevant products, is a big part of retailers’ ecommerce strategy, according to Total Retail. Consumers want personalization from their ecommerce shopping experiences, but only if it’s helpful. Don’t make it weird. Nearly 60% of consumers said personalized recommendations were “creepy”. 

Per Total Retail, shoppers are open to sharing information if it equals more relevant product recommendations and personalized content. The lesson here is to be helpful, but also clear about how you’re using customer information. Shoppers’ clicks, searches, and purchase history tell you exactly what they want to see. Use that data to craft relevant product displays and recommendations that help them find the perfect gifts.