The growth of ecommerce in 2020 is hardly surprising. The industry has been increasing steadily year on year and once the living restrictions of the COVID pandemic came intro effect, online purchasing took off and became a part of daily life for many.
On the whole, consumers were either reluctant or unaware to online shopping before COVID – for example, only 9% bought their groceries exclusively online. Now 63% of shoppers are buying online with a strong majority (86%) looking to carry on doing so. In fact, ecommerce grew so much (75%) in Q2 of 2020, that it even outperformed the holiday shopping season of 2019, which was said to be one of the best ever.
Research conducted by Salesforce indicates that as much of 60% of consumer’s interaction with companies is now online, with the majority stating that they expect companies to accelerate digital initiatives due to the pandemic. The growth of online companies is also telling – in Q3 of 2020, eBay’s sales grew by a quarter year on year and Amazon’s sales grew by 37%.
The Role of New Technology
The rise of New Technology that has made purchasing even quicker and easier has been a big factor towards this growth. Voice assistants – such as an Alexa or Google Home – have seen a huge rise in use. A Microsoft survey found 40% of consumers in the US, UK, Canada, India, and Australia had used voice technology to make online purchases. Unsurprisingly, COVID has accelerated their use too – 52% of voice assistant users say they use the technology “several times a day or nearly every day,” which is up from 46% before the pandemic.
Other new tech such as Multichannel Marketing – an approach that combines various marketing channels including text messages, social media platforms, and emails – have also been put to good use to increase customer satisfaction and purchase confidence. It’s been shown that marketers using three or more channels had a 287% higher purchase rate, and a 90% higher customer retention rate.
Another factor is shopping through mobile phones. Consumers are becoming more confident purchasing through them, although not as much as desktops yet. More than half the time spent on retail sites is through mobile but desktop orders have more products and more expensive items. Taking these figures into account, it’s no wonder that multichannel marketing is so effective for purchase completion.
For further insight into how Ecommerce has been changed in 2020, Website Builder Expert have created this infographic with more information. See it below:
