Most of us in the gift industry know that Thanksgiving weekend is the biggest holiday buying days of the year!
But this year, it will be even bigger for online retailers!
Back in July and August, I posted two articles on the sales trends expected during the pandemic:
Now, with the biggest holiday buying season starting very soon, let’s see what the forecasts are for retail 
sales.
Creditcards.com (see image) predicts at two out of three shoppers plan to do their holiday buying online! Their reason, of course, is because of the convenience of online shopping!
Forbes shares similar stats on their late September website article by Pamela N. Danziger:
E-Commerce Sales Will Explode This Holiday Season, Putting Retailers’ Online Strategies To The Test
Online growth off the charts
Forrester sees online retail growing 18.5% this year, so that it will reach 20.2% overall penetration in North America.
Online sales for retailers in popular gifting categories will get a boost this season, with health and beauty up 23%, consumer electronics rising 20%, fashion up 19% and home furnishings growing 16% by year’s end.
On the flip side, in-store retail performance in these categories will tank – health and beauty offline sales down 8.2%, home furnishings off 15.2%, consumer electronics down 26.3% and in-store fashion sales off by 33.7%.
“As online buyer behavior remains strong, we expect offline sales to decline by 6.6% in 2020,” Forrester reports.
According to the National Retailer Federation late September article:
November is historically the most popular month to start holiday shopping. Despite concerns related to the coronavirus, 43 percent of holiday shoppers surveyed this year say they are waiting until November to start buying for the season, and a majority (59 percent) plan to shift more of their shopping online compared with last year, according to NRF’s annual consumer holiday survey.
If you don’t currently have a website for your products, there is still time to set one up before the holidays — if you act fast!
My best recommendation for an e-commerce site is still 3DCart. 
Check out my review of the software along with my affiliate link
where you can purchase the software: 3dCart
Need extra help? Check out my mini e-guide for setting up a website (that also includes tips on creating a retail website: Websites for Wholesaling