Ecommerce and The Holidays – Business Process Outsourcing Companies Support the New Age of Retail

Default Featured Image

Predictions for holiday spending are rosy: consumers are ready to open their wallets. With confidence mounting after months of lockdowns and travel restrictions, relatively low unemployment rates and increased savings, all signs point to a robust holiday shopping season. Even last year, in the depths of the pandemic, holiday retail sales grew by 5.8% – up from 4.1% in 2019. And 2021 promises to increase retail sales from 7% to 9%, with shoppers interested in traveling, dining out, entertaining, and going to the stores to look for deals. Despite that, consumer behaviors shaped by COVID will continue to impact spending: predictions call for ecommerce sales to jump 11% – 15% year over year – allowing retailers to ring up holiday sales totaling between 1.28 trillion to 1.3 trillion, according to estimates.

Other predictions point to increased foot traffic in bricks and mortar retail outlets, with a significant boom in ecommerce. According to Mastercard SpendingPulse, US retail through the holiday season will grow by 7.4% overall. This consumer shift is dictated by increased confidence in a post-pandemic economy, and with a growing percentage of the population vaccinated, consumers are not entertaining a return to the “lock-down mentality”. In fact, buyers are showing signs that they’re ready to make up for lost time, and credit giant MasterCard predicts that many will splurge on apparel, luxury items and jewelry. With the combination of pent-up saving and government stimulus, this holiday season signals that there is both the desire and the means to spend.

And let’s face it: ecommerce just keeps getting bigger and bigger. MasterCard SpendingPulse forecasts that online sales will reach a record high across the holiday season, growing a staggering 59.3% over 2019. That’s a market worth capturing. A big part of the ecommerce trend is the contactless, ‘buy online, pick up in store’ (BOPIS) model, which took off during COVID and is here to stay, underscoring the importance of an omnichannel strategy for retailers who want to lead. Today’s consumers expect options, and retailers who can rise to the challenge of providing online and offline choices are ahead of the game.

The golden rule of a post-pandemic economy remains: nimble responses to shifting consumer behaviors will drive success. With supply chain issues presenting new challenges, retailers will need to rely on creative and flexible order fulfillment, with ship-to-store, ship-from-store, and BOPIS ruling the retail experience. And where do business process outsourcing companies fit in this dynamic new age of retail resilience?

With so much emphasis on ecommerce as the emerging consumer platform of choice, established BPO companies like Anexa are uniquely equipped to support businesses that are looking to excel in the online sales space. With hand-picked and highly trained agents numbering in the thousands, we have two decades of experience in identifying business trends and driving growth for our client-partners. As a “one-stop solution” to a wide range of needs including sales and help desk support, data entry, marketing campaigns, tech troubleshooting, and omnichannel CX management, Anexa has won multiple awards in the outsourcing industry for setting the bar in delivering exceptional business processes.

Reach out to Anexa for more information on how to set your bar.