Under The Tree For Retailers This Holiday Season: More Efforts To Combine Online, In-Store Shopping

 CBRE’s Annual Holiday Retail Trends Guide Outlines Retailers’ Focus This Season On Buy-Online/Ship-To-Store, Enhanced Loyalty Programs & More


Los Angeles – November 6, 2018 – Retailers will seek to cap a strong year this holiday season by doubling down on strategies to draw online shoppers into stores, reward their loyalty in new ways and ensure that toys are available at every turn, according to a new report from CBRE.

CBRE’s annual Holiday Retail Trends Guide found a common theme connecting several of the strategies prepared by retailers for this season: Enhanced capabilities to seamlessly cater to shoppers in stores, online and on their mobile devices.

“Brick and mortar retailers here in Southern California and across the nation have made tremendous advances over the past few years adapting to e-commerce,” said Jeff Moore, CBRE’s senior managing director for the Orange County region and head of retail services for Southern California. “In this important shopping region of the U.S., we are seeing them embracing this new world of consumer demand for value, experience and convenience. We’ve seen them right size store footprints and create an effective omnichannel approach for the different needs and wants of their customers. I predict a very good shopping holiday season as both retailers and consumers are getting on the same page.”

CBRE’s 2018 U.S. Holiday Trends Guide outlines four trends shaping this season as it unfolds:

The Optimistic Shopper
The strong economy and near-full employment helped push retail sales growth to a six-year high in this year’s first half, which in turn has generated forecasts of healthy retail sales gains of up to 4.8 percent for the holiday season. Retailers excelling in this environment mostly are those so proficient at selling across multiple channels that few of their transactions are strictly in-store or online anymore.