The holiday shopping season has come and gone, giving a lot of retailers hope for their online sales momentum going into the new year. Internet Retailer reported about how e-commerce sales went up this year by 20% between Black Friday and Christmas Eve. This shows that more and more shoppers are becoming more comfortable with the convenience of purchasing online.

The data was gathered by MasterCard Advisors and the company's findings was based on national US retail sales across all payments types between November 27th (Black Friday) and December 24th, right before Christmas. The article mentioned how lower gas prices helped with the sales increase. Also, part of the online sales increase can be attributed to consumers lacking time to shop in stores. In addition, they can buy a gift and have it delivered; however, the recipient can handle the return if they don't like the gift.

The National Retail Federation in October predicted that retail sales during November and December will grow 3.7% compared with 2014. On-store sales—which include online and mail-order catalogs, telephone sales and other direct-to-consumer sales that do not take place online—would grow by 6-8%. Also, an October NRF survey showed that online shopping would account for almost 50% of purchases this holiday season, and that consumers, on average, said 46% of their holiday shopping this year will be done online, up from 44.4% in 2014.

ComScore Inc. forecasted that online sales would be lower than the 20% increase this year. Therefore, consumers surprised businesses with how they came out and shopped online during the 2015 holiday season. There is a level of visibility that retailers have brought to the web that makes it easy for shoppers to research, compare and make the purchase that makes the most sense. Also, in-store pick up is helping department stores like Macy's transition its' customers from online into its' store. They can bypass long lines by simply ordering online, which again save times and adds convenience to the shopping process that customers want.

Online growth is still small in comparison with in-store sales. Sarah Quinlan, MasterCard Advisors’ senior vice president of market insights, stated in the article, “I don’t believe this kind of growth is sustainable, and I think we’ll see a return to more single-digit growth numbers after the first of the year. Even with the surge in online spending growth, it’s still only 10% of total retail sales during this holiday period, so the share is still not huge. Consumers are doing their homework online and not necessarily executing there."

Online business isn't a huge total of retail sales, yet it is a growing one, commanding the attention of companies to stay current with e-commerce. For example, Amazon, Google, and more are causing same-day delivery to become a staple service with online business because of more market segments it provides access to. Many shoppers, especially younger age groups, like the convenience of utilizing their tech gadgets to get online items delivered right to their front door or workplace.

As same-day delivery grows along with e-commerce, more companies will be inclined to partner with a Same-Day Courier like A-1 Express to perform the actual service for them. The Portland Courier implements same-day solutions for a variety of businesses nationwide, which is plus for retailers pursuing to compete online.

Reference: 12.28.15, www.internetretailer.com, Tracy Maple, Holiday e-commerce sales surge 20%