By Jenna Ross / Visual Capitalist / Dec. 13, 2024
Online Shopping: Charting the Holiday Surge
In the fourth quarter of 2023, online shopping was a record-breaking 17% of all retail sales. Put another way, one out of every six dollars was spent online.
This graphic highlights the spike in ecommerce that occurs every year during the holiday season.
The Growing Popularity of Online Shopping
Over the last 15 years, the percentage of money consumers are spending online has more than tripled. The most online shopping always occurs in the fourth quarter due to Black Friday and holiday spending.
In the table below, we show online shopping as a percentage of total retail sales over time.
Source: U.S. Census Bureau. Data accessed November 19, 2024.
With people stretched for time during the busy holiday season, many opt for quick online orders and home deliveries.
Beyond convenience, deals also draw people to their screens. For instance, Amazon’s October Prime Day and Cyber Monday both offer deals catered to online shoppers. In 2024, Cyber Monday drew over 64 million U.S. shoppers—nearly three times higher than the 23 million people who shopped in stores.
To handle the increase in online shopping orders, U.S. retailers will need to have a plan for storing their products and transporting them to customers.
The Logistics of Online Orders
Free and fast shipping are top priorities for online shoppers. Nearly 40% would abandon a retailer with high shipping costs, while 32% would stop buying because of late deliveries. These high expectations, and the increase in ecommerce, is driving demand for real estate that can process online orders.
Editordude: Don’t forget the strike by Amazon workers!
Amazon refuses to acknowledge the organizing efforts of drivers and warehouse workers — many of whom have voted to unionize — even though the powerful Teamsters union says it represents them.
Strikes — particularly ones that happen during the holidays, a time of high economic activity — can help unions exercise leverage during negotiations or flex their muscles by garnering support from workers and sympathetic consumers.
At Amazon, which wase not unionized before the pandemic, workers have yet to secure an agreement with the e-commerce giant. , which both have their headquarters in Seattle.
Teamster-led strikes at Amazon
The Teamsters say workers at Amazon are striking at seven delivery stations in Southern California, San Francisco, New York City, Atlanta and Skokie, Illinois, because the company ignored a Sunday deadline the union had set for contract negotiations. At midnight on Saturday, the Teamsters say workers will also strike at a prominent warehouse in New York, which voted to join the fledgling Amazon Labor Union in 2022 and have since elected to affiliate with the Teamsters.
The prominent labor group says it’s fighting for higher wages, better benefits and safer working conditions for Amazon employees, many of whom experience economic insecurity while working for a company worth $2.3 trillion. It has not said how many Amazon warehouse workers or drivers are joining the striking.
The union has mainly focused on organizing delivery drivers, which the company says are not its workers because they are directly employed by contractors Amazon recruited to handle package deliveries.
That type of setup gives the Amazon more cover from unionization attempts in an industry — transportation and trucking — that’s dominated by the Teamsters. However, the union has argued before the National Labor Relations Board that the drivers, who wear Amazon’s ubiquitous gray-blue vests and drive similarly colored vans, should be classified as company employees.
Meanwhile, the online retailer has accused the union of pushing a “false narrative” about the thousands of workers it claims to represent. Amazon has also touted its pay, saying it provides warehouse and transportation employees a base wage of $22 per hour plus benefits. It also recently boosted hourly pay for the subcontracted delivery drivers.
In September, the NLRB, which has taken a more pro-labor stance under President Joe Biden, filed a complaint that found the drivers to be joint employees of Amazon. The agency also accused Amazon of unlawfully failing to bargain with the Teamsters on a contract for drivers at a California delivery hub.
The Teamsters union says it also represents Amazon warehouse workers, including thousands of employees at the major New York City fulfillment center who voted to be represented by the Amazon Labor Union.
Amazon objected to the 2022 warehouse election results, alleging the Amazon Labor Union and the federal labor board had tainted the vote. A regional NLRB director issued a complaint last year that accused Amazon of violating the law by refusing to bargain with the union.
Amazon, in turn, is challenging the constitutionality of the NLRB in federal court along with Elon Musk’s SpaceX. See news source here.
