It’s crunch time for holiday gift purchases, and shopping trends show how consumers are approaching the busiest sales season.

Global online sales for the 2024 holiday shopping season so far, from Nov. 1 through Dec. 14, have reached $849 billion, according to the ecommerce and cloud-based software company Salesforce. That’s a 4% year-over-year increase.

Salesforce says it draws on global shopping data from more than 1.5 billion shoppers from its Commerce Cloud, Marketing Cloud and Service Cloud platforms. In North America, 76 of the Top 2000 online retailers use Salesforce as their ecommerce platform. In 2023, those 76 online retailers combined for more than $136.077 billion in web sales.

Online retailers are making the pushes they can before the holiday shopping season ends. For example, one retailer told Digital Commerce 360 that once its shipping deadline hits, it focuses on gift cards, which are redeemable both online and in stores and drive further spending.

Here are five online holiday shopping trends Salesforce identified, starting from the beginning of the season — Nov. 1 — and extending past Cyber Monday.

1. Buy online, pick up in store adoption

Buy online, pick up in store (BOPIS) has become more popular as the holiday season has gotten closer to its finale. Consumers want — and in some cases, need — to save time by avoiding long checkout lines and shipping deadlines.

Salesforce data indicates that in the week following Cyber Monday, BOPIS accounted for 21% of online purchases. It predicts that the weekend before Christmas, which features Super Saturday, the number of BOPIS orders will double compared to the rest of the season, accounting for 40% of all online orders for the retailers that offer the service.

2. Growing mobile wallet and BNPL use

Consumers are increasingly making purchases through their mobile wallets, Salesforce data shows. They continue using options including Apple Pay, Google Pay and PayPal. Global mobile wallet usage increased 16% year over year for the week following Cyber Monday.

And on just three days this holiday season — Thanksgiving, Black Friday and Cyber Monday — U.S. consumers spent $2.1 billion using buy now, pay later (BNPL), according to data from Adobe Analytics.

Adobe Analytics says its data is based on more than 1 trillion visits to U.S. retail sites, 100 million SKUs and 18 product categories, according to the company.

3. Mobile shopping’s increasing role

That rise is directly related to the increase in mobile shopping as a whole. Mobile shopping has become the primary channel for consumers, accounting for more than half of traffic. From Nov. 1 through Dec. 14, mobile shopping accounted for 69% of all online orders, Salesforce said.

The platform provider predicts 83% of all online traffic and 76% of all online orders will be mobile-driven between Dec. 23 and Christmas.

On the biggest online sales day yet, mobile shopping was responsible for 57% of sales, representing $7.6 billion, according to Adobe Analytics. That’s up 13% year over year. Moreover, in the 2019 holiday season, just 33% of Cyber Monday sales came from mobile devices, Adobe said.

4. Accelerated use of generative AI

Online retailers continue trying to find the best use cases for generative artificial intelligence (AI). Capitalizing on the online shopping trends associated with it, Salesforce says its Agentforce product helps retailers drive efficiency and personalization.

Agentforce is an AI-powered suite of autonomous “agents” and tools. Since Cyber Monday, Salesforce said, online retailers have increased their use of generative AI overall as well as its agents by 23% week over week.

And that comes after generative AI chat bots increased traffic to retail sites compared to last year, according to Adobe. On Cyber Monday, they generated more than 10 times the traffic they did during last year’s Cyber Monday (1,950% growth), Adobe said.

“While the base of users remains modest, the uptick shows the value chat bots are playing as a shopping assistant for consumers to find deals or to quickly locate products,” Adobe said.

5. Higher rate of returns

As with any shopping trend, online or not, retailers must factor in returns. And between Nov. 1 and Dec. 14, consumers returned about 8.3% of purchases, Salesforce data shows. That’s a 6.6% increase from 2023. Salesforce predicts that consumers will return more than $133 billion’s worth of online orders placed this holiday season.

In total, the National Retail Federation and Happy Returns project U.S. returns to reach $890 billion in 2024. Retailers estimate 16.9% of their annual sales in 2024 will result in returns, NRF and Happy Returns data shows. Returns occur year-round, but they’re more prevalent during the holiday season, the NRF said.

76% of consumers consider free returns a key factor in deciding where to show, their data shows. Furthermore, 67% said a negative return experience would discourage them from shopping with a retailer again.

“Returns play an important role within the retail ecosystem and offer an additional touchpoint for retailers to provide a positive interaction with their customers,” said Katherine Cullen, NRF vice president of industry and consumer insights, in a statement. “Retailers recognize the value of returns and their integration with brand loyalty, and many are prioritizing their returns capacity to ensure a seamless customer experience.”

Retailers also struggle with bracketing. Bracketing is when consumers purchase multiple items with the intent to return some. For example, a consumer might buy different sizes of shirts or pants online and try them on at home to find out what fits them best, then return the ones that don’t. More than half (51%) of Gen Z consumers said they engage in this practice, according to NRF data.

In addition to bracketing, fraudulent and abusive practices create both logistical and financial challenges for retailers, the NRF and Happy Returns said.

“Return policies are no longer just a post-purchase consideration — they’re shaping how younger generations shop from the start,” said David Sobie, co-founder and CEO of Happy Returns, in a statement. “With behaviors like bracketing and rising return rates putting strain on traditional systems, retailers need to rethink reverse logistics. Solutions like no box/no label returns with item verification enable immediate refunds, meeting customer expectations for convenience while increasing accuracy, reducing fraud and helping to protect profitability in a competitive market.”

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