Retail trade in Spain is optimistic about the next Christmas season, according to the results of an online survey carried out by Packlink, the largest technological platform for contracting parcel shipments for individuals and companies.
This is a report prepared by Packlink based on the opinions of almost 300 managers of Spanish online stores, who have contributed their point of view on various aspects that mark the evolution of electronic commerce in our country in this year of pandemic.
Although when asked directly if they believe this season will be better than 2019, retailers are completely divided: 49% believe yes and 50% believe no. However, everyone expects their billing to increase compared to the previous year.
Among those who are more pessimistic, the main reason that leads them to be so is economic instability (47%), well above the possibility that, during Black Friday, more aggressive offers are carried out.
Who, on the contrary, come with good omens this Christmas campaign consider that the compelling reasons are the fact that online shopping has increased this year (35%) and that, in addition, new user profiles have joined this trend that, until the outbreak of Covid-19, perhaps they had not dared to buy products online.
“The Christmas campaign is one of the main sales moments in our country. Retailers are cautiously optimistic about this upcoming campaign”, Explains Noelia Lázaro, Packlink Marketing Director. “On the one hand, the uncertainty of the economic situation leads them to think that it may not be better than last year’s campaign, but the fact that electronic commerce has grown so much as a result of the confinement and that there are new user profiles that have become accustomed to buying online invite you to think that, deep down, the turnover of your companies will improve, even slightly”.
Between 10 and 40% increase
99% of respondents are, yes, confident that their turnover will grow compared to the one achieved last year. The majority (46%) expect to see their results improve by 10%, while 37% expect growth to range between 20 and 40%.
To these should be added almost 1 in 10 retailers (9%) expect that this Christmas campaign will increase their turnover by 50% and 5% of those surveyed expect to exceed even that 50%.
Regarding the expenditure that, on average, each person will allocate to Christmas presents in your business, the most voted answer (44%) it was 50 euros. 22% of those surveyed reduce the amount to 20 euros and 15% increase it to 75 euros.
What will people spend this budget on? Almost half of the retailers (46% bet on technology as the star product to be bought online during this Christmas campaign. Meanwhile, 32% bet on fashion and accessories and 11% do so on perfumery and beauty products.
Amazon is still king
What there is practically no doubt about is placing Amazon as, again, the Marketplace that he is going to take the cat to the water of all those that are in the market. 9 out of 10 surveyed by Packlink corroborate this.
Regarding the technological platforms in which the highest product sales will occur, the results are much more distributed. In this way, 4 out of 10 respondents (39%) bet on WooCommerce, while 1 in 3 (33%) does so on Prestahsop. Shopify remains in third position, with one in four responses received (24%) and Magento only receives 3% of the reviews.
Internal organization
On the other hand, it should be noted that the retailers they do not plan to increase their workforce due to the Christmas campaign (60%) or, if they do so, very timidly: one in 3 respondents say that they plan to hire one or two more people to attend this campaign.
Almost in the same proportion, retailers say they do not plan to strengthen their logistics department for this campaign, although 41% do plan to do so.
Packlink eCommerce Day
The results of this survey have been released in the course of the fourth edition of eCommerce Day, an event, this time virtual, due to the current situation, and which was attended by more than 80 professionals. A day in which Packlink once again brought together the main players in electronic commerce and has already become a benchmark for learning about the sector’s forecasts and strategies for the Christmas season.
During this edition, they were invited Edmmond Studios, Spanish men’s fashion brand led by three entrepreneurs, which arises from the combination of product, design and way of life. Joseba Colera Goñi, Digital Marketing Manager, was in charge of telling us the keys to the business.
Manuel Gómez, Founder of Rural Toys, the first eCommerce dedicated exclusively to marketing toys and experiences related to the rural world for the little ones. MiiN Cosmetics, a Korean cosmetics store that began in 2014 and has become one of the references at a European level. Sara Jiménez, Communication & Marketing Director, explained to us the secret of her success.
In addition to the success stories of these three leading digital businesses in Spain, this year eCommerce Day once again featured Andrés from Spain, CEO of 3dids, who was in charge of the presentation “How to make your fashion business work on Amazon”, In which he detailed the keys and strategies to guarantee the sustainability of a fashion eCommerce on this platform.
