eBay Advertising
2020 Christmas spend trends whitepaper. The path to profit during a pandemic.
The run-up to Christmas is always one of the most critical retail milestones for brands and retailers, but in 2020 with the impact of COVID-19, there was an added dimension of complexity and pressure. The 2020 festive season could literally make or break some brands and have a significant affect on the economy’s recovery.
Our client, eBay Advertising, continually engages with its audience of UK brand owners and media agencies, providing valuable insights gleaned from the vast data and understanding that eBay’s e-commerce platform generates.
Traditionally, therefore, in the run-up to the Christmas period, our role is to support eBay Advertising by designing a countdown guide to Christmas aimed at retailers, eBay sellers, media agencies, and brand owners. This guide aims to share the spending patterns on eBay from the previous year and across a wide range of categories, including Fashion, Electronics, Home & Garden, Health & Beauty, and Sports & Leisure. By providing an insight into when Christmas spending starts and peaks and how this differs across categories, eBay helps advertisers time and optimise their Christmas advertising window.
However, with 2020 being such an unprecedented year, it was necessary to adopt a different approach by providing additional commentary, support and context.
Working alongside eBay Advertising’s PR agency, Firstlight, we helped create an industry whitepaper titled ‘Christmas spend trends. A path to profit during a pandemic’, for sharing across eBay Advertising’s social media channels. The report pulled together the results from data generated by eBay’s 32 million monthly unique users, as well as the findings of a survey of over 2,000 UK consumers who celebrate Christmas.
The output helped to share amongst other insights how COVID-19 has changed shopping behaviour significantly while leaving many with an increased sense of responsibility towards supporting local businesses. The guide also focused on interpreting the various insights from a brands perspective and gave suggestions on how to respond.