Be in the Know: Ecommerce Statistics You Should Know

May 13, 2019 By Ecommerce, Marketing

The growth of ecommerce is out of this world!

In 2017, ecommerce was responsible for around $2.3 trillion in sales and is expected to hit $4.5 trillion in 2021 (according to a Statista report). In the US alone, ecommerce represents almost 10% of retail sales and that number is expected to grow by nearly 15% each year!

But, ecommerce is not a random whirlwind of people coming and going, buying stuff online without a trace…

Everything on the internet is tracked, from optimal times of engagement, likes and reactions, click through rates, demographics to even referral traffic! And, not surprisingly, all of that data has resulted in a huge amount of ecommerce statistics you can use to grow your business.

Let’s take a look at a compiled list of some of the most important ecommerce statistics you need to know.

Note, this post was updated on May 13, 2019.

Ecommerce Statistics to Consider

*Helpful numbers to put these statistics in perspective: The world population is 7.6 billion and the internet has 4.1 billion users.

General Ecommerce Statistics

Technology Ecommerce Statistics

  • There are expected to be 600,000 commercial drones in use by 2018, and almost half of Americans would be willing to receive deliveries by drone.
  • A 2015 survey showed customers spending almost 60% of their online shopping time on their mobile devices. That translated to only 15% of purchases made on mobile.
  • Almost half of consumers list live chat as their preferred way to connect, and about the same number say they would buy from a chatbot.
  • Image and voice activated search may make up 50% of all searches by 2020.
  • Mobile commerce hit ]$700 billion in revenue in 2017, which is more than 300% growth over the past four years.
  • Almost 60% of people who own a virtual assistant have used it to make a purchase through voice command. Despite rumors that Siri would enable online shopping starting in 2012, the most that users can do by voice on an iPhone is create a shopping list.
  • By 2021, it is predicted that early adopter brands that redesign their websites to support visual and voice search will increase digital commerce revenue by 30%.
  • By 2019, B2B firms will spend more on e-commerce technology than online retailers do.
  • Amazon reports that Echo sales increased by 700% in 2017 over 2016,and competing devices proliferated.
  • Mobile shopping hit $2 billion on Cyber Monday.
  • 40% of millennials have used voice search before making a purchase online, according to studies. 20% of Google searches on mobile are voice.
  • A ReadyCloud report finds that 44% of retail internet minutes were spent using a smartphone device, while 11% were spent using a tablet, as compared to 45% spent using a desktop.
  • Mobile 500 retailers made big gains in 2017, reporting a 68.5% increase in visits and topping more than 3 billion logged shopping sessions.
  • According to Nielson, 50% of redeemed mobile coupons are captured directly from a retailer’s site by the consumer.
  • 88% of online shoppers will use webrooming to find the best price.
  • 69% of B2B businesses say they expect to stop printing catalogs within five years.

Shopping Cart Ecommerce Statistics

  • 56% of shoppers said that being presented with unexpected costs is the reason they leave without completing their purchase.
  • Online shoppers abandon their shopping carts 68% of the time.
  • At the average abandonment rate of 68%, ecommerce sites could be losing $3 billion a year, if not more.
  • A PayPal study revealed that 43% of shoppers abandoned shopping carts because the shipping charges were too high.
  • From 2015 to 2017, the global average cart abandonment rate increased from 71.39% to 77.24%.
  • 23% of users will abandon their shopping cart if they have to create a new user account.
  • 54% of shoppers will purchase products left in shopping carts if those products are subsequently offered at a lower price.
  • An inconvenient returns policy deters 80% of shoppers.

Mail Ecommerce Statistics

  • There will be more than 3.7 billion email users by the end of 2017
  • Gmail is the most popular email platform, commanding 46.77% of the marketshare.
  • There are over 400 million active Outlook users
  • 72% of people prefer email as the mode of business communication.
  • Millennials prefer communication with businesses to be over email as well. 67.6% of teens and 73.1% of those aged 19 to 34 prefer email over direct mail, SMS and app notifications.
  • 91% of Americans want to receive promotional emails.
  • At 4.15 on a scale of 1 to 7, customers rated discounts in email as the biggest influence on their purchase decisions.
  • 75% of Gmail users access their emails on mobile devices.
  • Percentage off discounts (35%) and free shipping (20%) are the offers email subscribers want the most.
  • 54% of emails are opened on mobile. This makes it the most popular platform, beating out desktop (16%) and webmail (30%).
  • Mobile device usage increased from 59% to 67% for consumers of ecommerce email in 2017.
  • The use of emojis in email marketing messages increased 775% from 2015 to 2016.
  • Email marketing spending in the United States would grow from 2.07 billion U.S. dollars in 2014 to 3.07 billion U.S. dollars in 2019.

Social Media Ecommerce Statistics

  • 30% of online shoppers say they would be likely to make a purchase from a social media network like Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, Twitter or Snapchat.
  • 23% online shoppers are influenced by social media recommendations
  • 84% Of online shoppers in the United States review at least one social media site before making a purchase.
  • On average, there are 1.45 billion daily active social media users. 85.8% of these daily active users are from outside the US and Canada.
  • 85% of orders from social media sites come from Facebook.
  • The average order value for customers referred from Facebook is $55.
  • Posts with photos get 53% more Likes, 104% more comments, and 84% higher click-through rates.
  • Posts with 80 characters or less perform better, with 66% more engagement than posts with more than 80 characters.
  • The average order value for customers referred from Twitter is $46.29.
  • The click through rate of Twitter ads is between 1-3%.
  • 75% of Instagram users have taken an action, such as visiting a website, after looking at an Instagram advertising post.
  • There are over 500,000 businesses who make use of Instagram as an advertising platform.
  • The average order value for customers referred from Instagram is $65.00.
  • The average cost per click for e-commerce stores advertising on Instagram is $1.03.
  • YouTube has over a billion users – nearly one-third of people online.
  • Almost 70% of YouTube views come from mobile devices.
  • The average order value for customers referred from YouTube is $37.63.
  • Video content on YouTube converts at 1.16%.

Now You Know!

Ecommerce statistics offer important insights you can use to guide your ecommerce marketing plans. We have the numbers to track everything we wish to manipulate and highlight in our marketing actions.

Use them and you can improve any business plan!

As an ecommerce marketer, you can’t help but be excited. Clearly, there are many opportunities for rapid growth!

But, as Stanley Marcus once said, “consumers are statistics, customers are people.” That is how you should use these numbers: to better serve and help your potential customers.

If you want help in creating strategies around some of these statistics, we can definitely help you make a plan! Contact me here!

What ecommerce statistics stood out to you? How do these ecommerce statistics change your marketing plans? Share your thoughts with me below!

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Cydney Hatch

Social Media Manager
Cydney is a polka dot wearing business owner, photographer, cupcake enthusiast and writer, who through her work, shares her personal passions about visual marketing, branding and business strategy.

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