(San Francisco, CA, Thursday, November 15, 2018) – Salesforce, the global leader in customer relationship management (CRM), empowers companies to connect with their customers in a whole new way. Leading retail brands like adidas, Puma, Coca-Cola, DVF, Lacoste and many others turn to Salesforce to better engage with customers across marketing, commerce, service, sales and more. Every year, Salesforce releases new holiday shopping season predictions based on insights gathered from 500 million shoppers across the globe. Key takeaways for holiday 2018 and beyond include:

• Mobile—Mobile will dominate. For the first time during the holiday season, shoppers will place more orders from their phones than computers or tablets. Mobile phones will account for 46 percent of all orders, edging out computers (44 percent), and far outpacing tablets (9 percent).
• Cyber Week— Nearly half of all holiday shopping will happen during Cyber Week. Black Friday will be the top digital shopping day of the season again, capturing 10 percent of the season’s revenue, while Cyber Monday will contribute eight percent of sales.
• Artificial Intelligence (AI)— AI will have a huge impact on increasing sales. Revenue from AI-based product recommendations will increase 25 percent over the 2017 holiday season, driving 35 percent of revenue overall.
• Social Channels— Instagram will emerge this holiday season as the fastest growing social channel for referring digital traffic to retail sites:
  • Instagram traffic will grow 51 percent year-over-year, while Facebook will see a seven percent decline. Social traffic share will surpass five percent during the holiday season, increasing 17 percent over last year’s social traffic share.
  • Health and beauty shoppers are the most likely to tap from Instagram to an ecommerce site.
• Purpose-driven Brands—2019 will see the rise of purpose-driven retail, particularly among younger consumers. These shoppers will increasingly seek out and reward companies that provide meaning beyond the transaction, and who demonstrate a commitment to values and ideals that align with their own.
• Search— Search will get smarter and more strategic with AI-based image recognition and product matching technology playing a critical role. Shoppers increasingly use their phones to search while browsing in store. With search becoming visual in 2019, the camera will be the new search box.
• Subscription Services— More brands will provide subscription services in 2019, moving past early adopters and hitting the mainstream. Look for brands to provide an experience with personalization, product exclusivity and even cause-based affinity.

Customer Service— The coming year will see forward-thinking retailers reimagine the role of customer service. The customer service rep will transform into an intelligent personal shopping assistant, cultivating a relationship between customer service and shopper, focused on increased loyalty and shopper frequency. We predict that service-led retail will be one of the hallmarks of the next generation of retail winners.