What Last Year’s Retail Trends Mean for 2012

1. The online pie grows. The consumer migration to shopping online continued in last year's fourth quarter. Fifteen percent of all holiday sales were transacted online in 2011, up from 6 percent in 2005 and 13 percent in 2010. Consumers are heading online in droves not only for the convenience of the channel but for the deals that can be found on the web. One such deal is free shipping, which consumers now expect as part and parcel of the online shopping experience, Mulpuru said. This phenomenon is helping spur the growth of shipping clubs (e.g., Amazon Prime, ShopRunner). In 2010, 9 percent of online shoppers were enrolled in one of these types of programs; that number swelled to 12 percent last year. These programs are adding incremental shoppers for brands, Mulpuru noted.