Welcome To Marketing Land’s Holiday Retailer, 2015 Edition!

The last of the record-setting winter snow finally melted in Boston yesterday, and there are still 163 online shopping days left before the official end of the holiday gift-buying season. But this is no time for a summer sigh of relief.

If you’re in the ecommerce business, you need to begin gearing up for the 2015 season, and we at Marketing Land are here to help with our Holiday Retailer section.

Yes, it’s Christmas in July on Marketing Land again this year, as we launch our annual coverage of the essential holiday ecommerce season. As you start putting the pieces into place to ensure that you have the most successful ecommerce season you’ve ever had, we’ll be here along the way, providing you a one-stop shop for news, expert opinion, how-to guides and actionable insights.

The stage is set for consumers to spend more of their retail dollars online in the 2015 holiday shopping season, as the percentage of spending that occurs online continues to increase, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce.

See that red line below? Those peaks are happening in the fourth quarter of every year, indicating perhaps that people prefer doing their holiday shopping online more than any other type of shopping. Ecommerce reached 7.6 % of total quarterly retail sales during the fourth quarter of 2014, and it’s likely to be even higher this year.

Online marketing has significant influence beyond ecommerce purchases, too, as consumers are connecting to digital information from parking lots and retail locations using their mobile phones.

According to a survey from the National Retail Federation, search is a prime influence on people’s gift choices, while e-mail marketing, along with retailer and third-party websites, play key roles in helping consumers keep track of holiday promotions.

Unfortunately, you can’t count on past years’ plans to carry you through in 2015, because both consumer behavior and marketing technology are changing rapidly.

Shoppers are reliant on mobile devices more than ever before — both Amazon and Target reported that 60% of their holiday shopping traffic came from mobile devices last year. Meanwhile, the successful deployment of marketing innovations, such as Google’s “Buy Button” in AdWords or Pinterest’s Buyable Pins, may make the difference between the winners and losers this ecommerce season.

You can count on our Holiday Retailer section to keep you up to date with all of the new marketing product and technology news in the lead up to Q4, and the expert marketers writing for our Retail Column will offer insights and share their experiences. The best part? There’s still time to put these ideas and innovations into place before the season kicks off in earnest.

In that spirit, we’re launching Holiday Retailer with a fresh and up-to-date checklist for ecommerce marketers, put together by contributor David Rekuc. Be sure to check it out and come back often for continuing coverage!

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About the author

Pamela Parker

Pamela Parker is Research Director at Third Door Media's Content Studio, where she produces MarTech Intelligence Reports and other in-depth content for digital marketers in conjunction with Search Engine Land and MarTech. Prior to taking on this role at TDM, she served as Content Manager, Senior Editor and Executive Features Editor. Parker is a well-respected authority on digital marketing, having reported and written on the subject since its beginning. She's a former managing editor of ClickZ and has also worked on the business side helping independent publishers monetize their sites at Federated Media Publishing. Parker earned a master's degree in journalism from Columbia University.