Revenue in Alibaba’s fiscal Q2, ended Sept. 30, jumped 30% from a year earlier on “deeper adoption” of the platform, accelerated by COVID-19 and “the rapid economic recovery in China,” said CEO Daniel Zhang on a Thursday investor call. “Digitalization is now universally recognized as a way forward in the post-pandemic world.” Global Shopping Festival, Alibaba’s equivalent of Amazon Prime Day, used to be a 24-hour event but this year was expanded into an 11-day marathon in two “shopping windows,” he said. The first ran Nov. 1-3; the second starts Nov. 11 and runs for eight days, he said. “We want to give consumers more time to browse and get the deal while easing pressure on the logistic infrastructure. This helps consumers receive their package sooner and enjoy a better shopping experience. Our merchants will also benefit from more exposure and selling opportunities.” On the festival's first day, more than 100 brands each surpassed sales of 100 million Chinese yuan ($15.1 million) “within the first 111 minutes,” and 357 new brands “on our platform became the top sellers in their respective subcategories,” he said.

Year-on-year online spending growth slowed on Halloween to 11%, totaling $1.7 billion, vs. 32% growth on average the week before, emailed Adobe Analytics Monday. E-commerce picked up Sunday with 34% growth to $2.3 billion on what Adobe records as the first day of the U.S. holiday sales season. The analytics firm predicts online sales of $16.3 billion during election week, through Saturday, with a slowing of 11% and a drop of $300 million Wednesday compared with the full week. Online sales dropped off 14% the day after the 2016 election and 6% after the 2018 midterm election, it said. Some 63% of retailers believe consumers will be more confident in spending after the election; 26% of consumers said the election outcome will affect their holiday spending. Adobe predicts U.S. online holiday sales will total a record $189 billion (see 2010280026), a 33% year-on-year increase. If consumers receive another round of stimulus checks, or physical stores need to shut down in large parts of the country, consumers are expected to spend an additional $11 billion online, surpassing $200 billion.

Rent-a-Center’s Q3 same-store sales grew 12.9% from the 2019 quarter due to a 71% increase in e-commerce transactions, said CEO Mitch Fadel on a Thursday investor call. The pandemic “accelerated” the finding that the “digital strategy is the right approach,” he said. The transition to e-commerce is “attracting new customers into lease-to-own,” and they tend to be “a younger demographic,” said Executive Vice President Anthony Blasquez. The supply-chain disruptions in electronics that Rent-a-Center experienced in Q2 improved “sequentially” in Q3, said Blasquez. “We feel like we're in good position to go ahead and meet the demand” for the holiday quarter, he said. Compared with supply-chain conditions in Q4 a year ago, “we're pretty close,” he said.

EBay sees tens of billions of dollars of "untapped potential” in the global refurbished market through last week’s launch of its “new elevated experience for certified refurbished product” (see 2010210045), said CEO Jamie Iannone on a Q3 investor call Wednesday. Buyers can save up to 50% on branded, refurbished inventory compared with new goods, he said. EBay built in “assurances” to seed program adoption, including a two-year warranty, eBay money-back guarantee and “hassle-free, 30-day returns,” he said. “We are launching this program in partnership with globally recognized brands,” he said. “Not only does this program help with buyers’ budgets leading into the holiday season, it also helps to eliminate unnecessary waste by keeping products in circulation for many years to come.” Iannone thinks the program will expand the platform to many new buyers, he said: “It's a real sweet spot for eBay.”

Tech giants are stepping up efforts for the holiday season. Amazon blogged Tuesday it’s filling more than 100,000 seasonal jobs to handle holiday orders. Positions are for employees who will help "pick, pack, and ship," it said. The seasonal jobs offer opportunities for pay incentives, benefits and a “path to a longer-term career, or can simply provide extra income and flexibility during the holiday season,” Amazon said. Google blogged Monday about tips for e-commerce merchants to help optimize consumer searches on Black Friday and Cyber Monday. It encouraged merchants to create pages early “so Googlebot has time to discover and index the page,” follow search engine optimization best practices, link to the landing page from home pages, use a recurring URL, use a high-quality image and “ask Google to recrawl your page.”

Holiday demand is likely to tax Amazon’s fulfillment, Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter wrote investors Monday. “We expect to see signs of strain, with some third parties likely to shift warehousing during the holidays to other online vendors,” said Pachter, calling it a “high class problem” with overall online holiday demand expected to "set records.” Amazon’s Holiday Dash deals began Oct. 16, earlier than 2019, when sales didn’t begin until its Black Friday deals week Nov. 22-29. Earlier holiday sales, the Prime Day shift to October, and likely share shift toward e-commerce spend from brick-and-mortar locations this year “all position Amazon to perform exceedingly well over the holiday period." Wedbush expects Amazon’s Q3 revenue to be at or above the high end of guidance -- $87 billion to $93 billion -- when the company reports earnings after U.S. market close Thursday. “Substantial revenue upside is likely,” said the analyst: Wedbush estimates 2020 Prime Day sales of roughly $6.1 billion, some 25% growth over its 2019 estimate of about $4.9 billion. In Q4, Amazon will "likely leave ample room to beat" despite another "record Prime Day and expected share gains for ecommerce over the holidays.” Amazon Web Services, Fulfillment by Amazon and ads should drive margin expansion, with Prime memberships driving overall retail revenue growth, Pachter said.

With Prime Day pushed into Q4, Amazon’s Q3 performance is likely to be strong but “muted” after a "sensational" Q2, emailed eMarketer analyst Andrew Lipsman Friday. The analytics firm expects a “historically great” holiday quarter for Amazon, with the added bump of the 48-hour sales event in October. It predicts Amazon’s 2020 e-commerce revenue will soar 37% vs. 2019 to $476 billion, for 12.2% of the global e-commerce market, with Marketplace accounting for 60.1% of e-commerce and direct sales for 39.9%. Cowen said Amazon has become an “essential piece of the shopping experience” for millennials and Generation Z consumers from initial search to product research to purchase when shopping online and in store: “The reliance on Amazon by these consumers is crucial as they enter their prime spending years and should act as a tailwind for Amazon expanding its portion of US wallet share in the coming years,” analyst John Blackledge wrote investors Friday. On major store closings, the Q1 COVID-19 shutdown was the “last straw” for many traditional retailers already dealing with rising e-commerce competition, Cowen said, due to stagnant brick-and-mortar sales and heavy debt. It expects 2020 store closings to pass 10,000. E-commerce penetration for clothing purchases will reach 42%, it estimated, vs. media (77%), office supplies (61%) and electronics (61%).

Amazon Prime memberships ticked higher in Q3 to an estimated 126 million, and Prime members were 64% of Amazon shoppers in the quarter, reported Consumer Intelligence Research Partners Thursday. The researcher attributed much of the growth, after several quarters of slowdown, to COVID-19, with customers needing to order more items while working and studying from home. CIRP sees Amazon’s measured launch of the Halo body composition and activity tracker, with an accompanying subscription, as a possible future benefit to drive Prime membership growth.

Amazon delivered two-thirds of its U.S. parcels in July, 274 million items, topping FedEx, said ABI analyst Susan Beardslee on a Wednesday webinar. Total retail revenue this year is forecast at $5.3 trillion, slipping 1.99%, with $70 billion from e-commerce, $4.2 trillion from brick-and-mortar stores. E-commerce is more than 14% of U.S. retail sales, she said. ABI pegs Amazon 2020 e-commerce sales at $310 billion, followed by Walmart at $41 billion. Beardslee noted Walmart started a Prime competitor this year. The top 10 retailers generate an estimated 63% of all U.S. digital sales. A growing concern for e-commerce companies is lack of qualified commercial truck drivers as the market recovers from COVID-19. More than 88,000 drivers were furloughed in April and either found other employment or retired, said the analyst. She cited a high incidence of noncompliant drivers found in the Drug and Alcohol Clearinghouse database, who hadn’t started a return to duty process as of August. The combination is resulting in driver shortages approaching 2018 levels, she said. That’s expected to “impact the cost to shippers,” as shippers incur costs to acquire and maintain talent; that cost is likely to be passed on to consumers, she said. Eighty percent of shoppers expect to use the buy online, pick up in store fulfillment option this season; 50% of retailers plan to offer it, she said.

EBay is launching a destination featuring "certified refurbished" laptops, portable audio devices and other products to meet such surging demand, it said Wednesday. Brands participating include Acer, iRobot, Lenovo, Philips, Skullcandy and Sennheiser. Certification requires an item “be in a pristine, like-new condition that has been professionally inspected, cleaned, and refurbished," said eBay. The program offers a two-year warranty on most items, plus 30-day “hassle-free” returns.