The big holiday shopping already started! People attacked online retail stores on Black Friday and yesterday the the e-commerce platforms exploded with visitors, because it was Cyber Monday. Even though the big spending is just beginning, there are a few trends that rule this holiday shopping season.
The first of them is the early Christmas shopping. It appears that people are starting to prepare for the holiday earlier than ever! Most of the retailers actually encourage this trend. Some of them even launched their first holiday deals on Halloween.
Another interesting tendency in the holiday 2012 shopping is that many stores reduced the prices of their items not on Black Friday, but on Thanksgiving, which a largely celebrated occasion in the United States. That again shows that the holiday 2012 shopping season started very early. Nevertheless, Thanksgiving wasn’t as successful as Black Friday or the Cyber Monday.
Also, gift cards are enjoying a great popularity this year. That may be due to the fact that they require less time and efforts. In addition, the person who receives them can choose between different products. Moreover, earlier this year, a survey found that most people prefer to get gift cards for Christmas 
The biggest and newest trend during the beginning of the holiday 2012 shopping season is mobile commerce. In other words, many consumers now prefer to shop online using mobile devices like smartphones and tablets. Actually, this type of sales is currently the fastest growing way of buying. After the start of the holiday season, mobile shopping has reached unimaginable heights. In addition, mobile commerce is predicted to account for nearly 12% by the end of the year. That amounts to about $96 billion!
What we can conclude from these statistics is that holiday 2012 shopping seasons now begins earlier than before and goes aggressively online. People try to find new ways to save money since they have invested in expensive and advanced smartphones and tablets.
