3 E-Commerce Stocks in Focus Amid Expected Strong Holiday Sales

We are in the fourth quarter of the 2024 event and the focus of market researchers has shifted to the 2024-25 holiday shopping season. Many research firms have already made predictions about retail sales for the upcoming holiday season.

Although physical or in-house sales are expected to be quiet and may even decline year-on-year, online or e-commerce sales are likely to be bright this year. Under these circumstances, investors should focus on internet-commerce stocks in the near to medium term. Three such stores are: Amazon.com Inc. AMZN, The company Wayfair Inc. W and Travelzoo TZOO.

Strong Online Holiday Sales Projections

Adobe estimates 2024 holiday sales from Nov. 1 to Dec. 31 to a record-high $240.8 billion, up 8.4% year-on-year. More importantly, mobile traffic will account for 53.2% of all online sales, up 12.8% year over year.

Mastercard SpendingPulse forecasts total retail sales from Nov 1 to Dec 24, 2024 to increase 3.2% year over year. Within this, online retail sales can advance 7.1% per year.

Deloitte’s retail and consumer products practice projects holiday sales to be $1.58 trillion to $1.59 trillion between November 2024 and January 2025. This represents a year-over-year increase of 2.3-3.3%. E-commerce sales are expected to grow 9% annually to between $290,000 and $990,000.

EMARKETER estimated that holiday sales during the November-December period will grow 4.8% annually to hit $1.353 trillion. However, online sales are expected to rise 9.5% annually. Salesforce predicts a 2% year-over-year increase in 2024 holiday sales to $272 million.

3 E-Commerce Stocks to Watch for the Holiday Season

These three e-commerce companies have the potential for growth in the year 2024. Moreover, these stocks have a strong price in the upper left in the short term. Each of these stocks currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see A complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

The chart below shows the price performance of three e-commerce stocks over the past three months.

Image Source: Zacks Investment Research

Amazon.com Inc.

Amazon is moving forward with its hardware strategy. Alexa powered Echo devices are going big and helping companies sell products and services. Artificial intelligence (AI) driven Alexa has already been integrated into many everyday devices of the digital home, which has turned the home market that started into an area that can grow in the near future.

Additionally, AMZN is benefiting from the growing number of Alexa-compatible smart devices. AMZN is racing to build an ecosystem around Alexa and it’s safe to say that it has taken the first step over Google’s smart assistant.

Amazon is a leading provider of cloud infrastructure services for enterprise customers. The growing customer base of Amazon Web Services (AWS) led by its strong cloud offerings, will continue to help AMZN dominate in the global cloud space.

Best Price Up Possible for AMZN Shares

Amazon has expected revenue and earnings growth rates of 10.4% and 63.5%, respectively, for the current year. The average price target of brokerage firms represents an increase of 21.3% from the last closing price of $180.80. The brokerage target price is currently between $200-$265.

The company Wayfair Inc.

Wayfair is benefiting from the rapid growth of active customers, due to lower costs and increased loyalty of customers and sellers. W’s strengthening market share, driven by wide availability and fast delivery of products, is a plus. W’s power to promote repeat customers is a breeze. Strong growth in mobile app orders is helping well. Strength in W fulfillment and vendor marketing is a big plus.

Interesting Top Price Possible for W Stock

Wayfair has an expected revenue and revenue growth rate of 5% and over 100%, respectively, for the coming year. The average price target of brokerage firms represents an increase of 15.7% from the last closing price of $56.32. The brokerage target price is currently between $42-$100.

Travelzoo

Travelzoo is an Internet media company. TZOO is involved in the provision of information to subscribers and website users about travel, entertainment and local deals available from companies. TZOO’s operating segment consists of Asia Pacific, Europe and North America.

The higher the price, the higher the probability of TZOO Stock

Travelzoo has expected revenue and earnings growth of 2.3% and 21.3%, respectively, for the current year. The average price target of brokerage firms represents an increase of 77.2% from the last closing price of $11.88. The brokerage target price is currently between $12-$35.

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