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Key articles and need-to-know insights for e-commerce and technology professionals today:
1. Report: US Online Sales to Grow 4.8% in Crucial Holiday Season
Online sales during the crucial US holiday season are expected to rise 4.8 percent from a year earlier as retailers go all out to woo inflation-hit consumers with even bigger discounts and promotions, a report from Adobe Analytics showed on Thursday. The sales are also expected to grow at a much faster pace and hit $221.8 billion for the period between Nov. 1 and Dec. 31 which includes some of the biggest shopping days such as Cyber Monday, Thanksgiving and Black Friday. That compares with $211.7 billion a year earlier.
Adobe said the holiday season would see heavy discounts this year, especially in the toys, sporting goods and furniture categories, with markdowns peaking at 35 percent. Last month, Mastercard’s SpendingPulse report forecast a 6.7 percent rise in online sales during the holiday season. Retailers such as Walmart , Target and Macy’s prepare months in advance for the all-important season as it brings in nearly a third of the industry’s annual revenue in a good year. With Amazon.com hosting its second Prime Day sale in October, holiday shopping is expected to start as early as this month
2. Big Tech Is Trying to Make Smart Glasses the Next Must-Own Device. Again.
Last month, at Meta’s annual conference on virtual and augmented reality — and now AI — the tech giant and Ray-Ban announced the second generation of their smart glasses, called the Ray-Ban Meta. They come roughly two years after the companies introduced their collaboration with the first-generation Ray-Ban Stories, which took Ray-Ban’s staple Wayfarer and embedded cameras and speakers into the frame, letting users take pictures and video, listen to audio and make calls.
However, while the glasses are meant to be a stepping stone in Meta’s journey to making the metaverse a reality, they don’t yet offer AR, which places a digital layer over the physical world. Meta and Ray-Ban say full AR glasses are, realistically, still five to 10 years away, at least in the form that they want. (Snap unveiled its first AR glasses in 2021 but portrayed them more as an experiment than a finished product at the time, and even today they have a number of limitations, such as their battery life.)
6. US Sales and Top Spending Customers Drive Sales at Mytheresa
Strong US momentum and a growing pool of top-spending customers drove sales and profit at Mytheresa in the fourth quarter despite “a very tough market,” said CEO Michael Kliger. The luxury e-tailer’s North America business grew 40.8 percent in the three months ending June 30, following a ramp-up in marketing investment in the region with special events for clients. Mytheresa said the value of goods sold (GMV) on its platform rose 14.5 percent to €855.8 million ($912.3 million) for the full year ending June 30, while revenue rose 11.4 percent to €768.6 million. Adjusted EBITDA was up 40.3 percent to €41.1 million. Shares were up 16 percent in early trading.
Mytheresa’s focus on courting luxury’s wealthiest customers is helping mitigate the impact of broader slowdown in demand for luxury goods, said Kliger, as aspirational shoppers pull back on spending amid an uncertain economic backdrop, hitting peers like Farfetch hard. Mytheresa has ramped up investment in the US to drive brand awareness, staging a five week pop-up in partnership with Flamingo Estate in East Hampton, NY over the summer. It’s also dialled up the number of money-can’t-buy experiences for top clients in the market, hosting events in cities like LA, Nashville, Miami and Aspen.
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