Ecommerce seems to be growing with no limit in sight. With more than two billion online shoppers, retailers have a seemingly endless pool of potential customers. How do you capture their attention? What do online shoppers expect from their ecommerce platforms in 2023?
We’re an agency of paid media and digital marketers. To get you started with your ecommerce marketing strategy, we’ve gathered together the latest statistics about the industry:
Ecommerce Statistics
US ecommerce statistics
80% of Internet users in the US have made at least one purchase online (99firms)
Ecommerce sales were up 104% in June 2020 over June 2019 (Signifyd)
Consumers spent $601.75 billion online with U.S. merchants in 2019, which is up 14.9% in 2018 (Digital Commerce 360)
US click-and-collect ecommerce sales are expected to grow 60.4% to $58.52 billion (eMarketer)
61% of online shoppers made an online purchase related to fashion, which is higher than any other product category (99firms)
On average, only 2.86% of ecommerce website visits convert into a purchase (99firms)
As many as 18% of local searches lead to a sale within 24 hours (Small Biz Genius)
eCommerce influences up to 56% of in-store purchases (Small Biz Genius)
2019 holiday season, Brick-and-mortar sales grew by 1.4%, while eCommerce grew by a staggering 8.1% (PYMNTS)
Some even expect “roughly 33% of America’s malls to go dark” by next year (Emarsys)
Global ecommerce statistics
There are between 12M to 24M ecommerce sites in the world (99firms)
The total value of global retail ecommerce sales will reach $4.13T in 2020 (99firms)
Global B2C ecommerce sales are expected to reach $4.5 trillion by 2021 (Hubspot)
The fastest growth in retail ecommerce between 2018 and 2022 is expected in India and Indonesia (99firms)
Ecommerce retail sales accounted for 14.1% of global retail sales in 2019 (99firms)
Ecommerce Marketing & Research
How do ecommerce businesses earn loyal customers? Research shows customers respond well to trustworthy customer experiences. From user-friendly product pages and helpful customer service, to transparent delivery fees. Customers in 2020 are looking for a well-rounded experience even after they become interested in your products.
To secure consumer business, ecommerce businesses are turning to a variety of marketing channels to reach customers.
Merchants see an average of 23% of their revenues coming from affiliate marketing (Cake)
The most effective method to generate traffic to an eCommerce store is PPC (Builderfly)
43% of ecommerce traffic comes from Google search (organic) and 26% comes from Google Adwords (99firms)
Search traffic generated 65% of total ecommerce sessions. An additional 33% was generated through organic search, and 32% was generated through paid search (Hubspot)
In a study of 46,000 shoppers, 73% leveraged multiple channels to do their shopping (Cake)
64% of Internet users are more likely to purchase a product online after watching a video (Lauro Medija)
Consumers are likely to spend 47% more when they have a personalized experience (Cake)
24% of B2C marketers say that paid search has the biggest impact on revenue across all digital tactics (99firms)
Ecommerce and social media
40% of merchants leverage social media to help generate sales (Cake)
In 2019, 30% of shoppers said they were open to buying products from social media platforms (Let’s talk About Money)
Facebook is used 53.1% of the time for social login opportunities on apps and websites to make ecommerce easier (Statista)
About 66% of companies with 100+ employees use Twitter as part of their marketing (Business of Apps)
Online stores with a social media presence see 32% more sales than those without one (Let’s Talk About Money)
74% of consumers rely on their social networks to make purchasing decisions (Kinsta)
Just 12% of consumers they have “a lot” of trust in influencer product recommendations. While 47% of shoppers say they have “a lot” of trust in recommendations from friends and family (Morning Consult)
Mobile Ecommerce Statistics
By 2021, mobile is predicted to dominate online sales, driving 54% of all sales (OptinMonster)
When deciding which brand or retailer to shop with, 59% of shoppers say having a mobile site is important (Hubspot)
Mobile e-commerce will account for 45% of all e-commerce revenue by 2020 (Cake)
70.5% of U.S. social referral traffic was generated from smartphones during the first quarter of 2019 (Aumcore)
80% of consumers search for information, reviews, and price comparisons online while shopping in a brick-and-mortar store (Aumcore)
Online shopping on mobile increased from 8% to 15%, while on desktop dropped from 78% to 63% (99firms)
82% of Internet users in the United States have used a mobile device to shop online (Statista)
53% of smartphone and tablet owners will shop on a specific company’s app (WPForms)
Almost 37% of smartphone users make an in-store mobile payment every 6 months (eMarketer)
Ecommerce Shopping Habits
Customers have seemingly unlimited options for online shopping. How do people choose where to shop and whether to pull the trigger on their purchases? These latest statistics break down consumers ecommerce shopping preferences, payment methods, and platforms:
Ecommerce shopping habits by demographic
Men spend more online than women do ($220 vs. $151) (99firms)
Men shop online for heavy-duty items such as furniture and computers while women buy groceries and clothes (OptinMonster)
Generation X consumers are the most active online shoppers, averaging 19 transactions per year (99firms)
Baby Boomers spend more per online transaction than Generation X and Millennial shoppers do (99firms)
93% of Millennials have compared online deals using a mobile device (Statista)
Customers between 45 and 54 years old, and 55 and 64 years old account for the greatest omnishopper growth. Their spending increased by roughly $20 billion year-over-year (Nielsen)
Omnichannel shoppers are younger, more educated, have higher incomes than other consumers (PYMNTS)
38.5% of consumers who shopped online were in the highest income bracket (PYMNTS)
What influences ecommerce shopping decisions
86% of women will look at social media before deciding to make a purchase (Omnicore Agency)
88% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations (Serpwatch)
51% of shoppers surveyed say they use Google to research a purchase they plan to make online (Hubspot)
40% of shoppers would buy a product they first experienced through augmented reality (99firms)
Ecommerce payment methods
Mobile payments will have passed the 50% milestone, becoming mainstream in most markets by 2026 (Small Biz Genius)
Half of survey respondents said it’s unsafe to save financial information when making purchases. Research reveals 64% of US cardholders do it anyway (Let’s Talk About Money)
Credit cards are the perferred method of payment for ecommerce, globally. Research found credit cards are used in 53% of online transactions. While dgital payment systems are used 43% of the time and debit cards are used 38% of the time (Kinsta)
Paypal and Apple Pay are the most common mobile wallets (PYMNTS)
Amazon ecommerce statistics
48% of online shoppers navigate straight to a large ecommerce marketplace when buying something online (Let’s Talk About Money)
Amazon is the largest eCommerce retailer in the world (Fortunly)
Amazon is the most popular mobile shopping platform (Statista)
55% of Americans begin their product searches on Amazon (Small Biz Genius)
Amazon will account for 50% of all US ecommerce sales by 2021 (Statista)
Amazon grabbed 44% of all US ecommerce sales in 2017 (99firms)
32.6% of clothing shoppers bought their most recent items from Amazon in 2020, compared to seven-percent in 2019 (PYMNTS)
Customer Experience on Ecommerce Websites
Consumers say their main motivation for shopping online is the ability to shop 24/7 (Fortunly)
Businesses lost $756 billion because of poor eCommerce personalization in 2019 (OptinMonster)
The top reason customers shop in marketplaces over stores is price (Digital Commerce 360)
Search and navigation are the most important site elements for online shoppers (Statista)
Almost 61% of shoppers didn’t finish their purchase because trust logos were missing (Small Biz Genius)
55% of online shoppers would rather buy from companies with store locations rather than exclusively online retailers (Score)
73% of surveyed consumers say the returns experience affected whether they would continue shopping with a retailer (UPS)
40% of consumers will form an opinion about your company with just 1 to 3 reviews (BrightLocal)
80% of online shoppers and 64% of mobile shoppers believe new technologies improve their ecommerce experiences (National Retail Federation)
Around 50% of people say they’d purchase something from a website’s chatbot (WPForms)
60% prefer to have simple questions answered by apps or chat tools because of the faster response time (Chatbot)
Why do online shoppers abandon their shopping carts?
The global cart abandonment rate for ecommerce is close to 70% (99firms)
55% of shoppers will leave their cart if they find “high” costs associated with the transaction (Baymard Institute)
If you require account creation during the checkout process, 28% of people will abandon carts immediately (Baymard Institute)
The product with the highest abandonment rate is clothing (40%), followed by tech (18%), and home products (16%) (OptinMonster)
The automotive industry has the greatest cart abandonment rate (Statista)
Ecommerce delivery statistics
Offering free delivery encourages 9 out of 10 people to buy (Review 42)
Free shipping is the most important factor for consumers when deciding from which retailer to make a purchase. The second most important factor is the ease of shipping return followed by the cost of return (Digital Commerce 360)
75% of consumers want brands to reduce packaging (Nosto)
18% of online shoppers in the United States demand next day delivery (Statista)
40% of US online shoppers expect to receive their items within two days of ordering (Statista)
How has COVID-19 Affected Ecommerce?
Prior to COVID-19, global retail was expected to $26.460 trillion, which represents a 4.4% expansion. After COVID-19 hit, forecasters estimate retail sales will decrease 10%, which equates to a $190.79 billion reduction (eMarketer)
In the first quarter of 2020, consumers spent $146.47 billion online with U.S. retailers. A 14.5% increase from the $127.89 billion spent in the first quarter of 2019 (Digital Commerce 360)
As of April 2020, US retailers’ online revenue growth was up 68%, year-over-year (Forbes)
US and Canadian ecommerce orders increased 129% year-over-year, as off April 21, 2020 (Forbes)
Online conversion rates increased 8.8% in February, reflecting a level of shopping urgency typically seen during Cyber Mondays (Forbes)
The portion of people shopping for food online has increased 24.7% year-over-year (PYMNTS)
Online grocery sales reached $5.30 billion in April, beating a record of $4.00 billion in March (Digital Commerce 360)
The portion of consumers shopping online for retail purchases is up 34.9% year-over-year (PYMNT)
55% of retailers surveyed said they’d seen a decline in ecommerce sales due to the pandemic (Digital Commerce 360)
Consumers are ordering food out more in 2020 than they were in 2019 (PYMNTS)
