11 Influential E-commerce Statistics, Trends & Facts
Do you run your own online business? Or maybe you are currently planning to set up an online store? First, get to know the e-commerce market better, it will give you a great chance of success! In this article, I will present the 11 e-commerce statistics and facts that you simply need to know. Let’s explore the world of e-commerce!
11 E-Commerce Statistics You Need to Know
1. People Love Buying Via Mobile Devices
At the end of 2019, Mobile Marketer conducted a survey among North American consumers, which showed that 81% of them use mobile devices for online shopping, especially during the Christmas season. As many as 45% declare that they use their mobiles to make online purchases all the time.
What’s more, a large part of customers (61%) needs mobile devices while shopping in-store. Why? They give several reasons, these include, above all: comparing prices with competitors, subscribing to a newsletter to get a discount, reading reviews, or taking photos to make a purchase in the future.
Other interesting facts about m-commerce which will convince you that it is worth investing your time and energy in increasing mobile traffic:
- in 2016, 9% of the world’s population had mobile devices, while in 2019 – 67%,
- it is estimated that in 2020 m-commerce sales will reach $2.91 trillion and in 2021 – $3.56 trillion,
- also, the share of mobile in total e-commerce is increasing – in 2016 it was 52.4%, in 2020 – 70.4%, and in the following year it will probably amount to 72.9%.
2. The Number of Digital Buyers Is Growing Year by Year
This probably won’t come as a surprise to anyone, but every year there are more and more people worldwide who choose to shop online. Let’s compare 2014 with 2020. 6 years ago, 1.32 billion people in the world were shopping online, this year there are already more than 2 billion. This is a really huge difference! And what’s more, it is estimated that this trend will continue in the following years as well.
This proves to all those who don’t believe that the global e-commerce market has a great future.
3. The Largest E-Commerce Markets in the World
Wondering which market is most worth investing in? Here is a list of the 10 largest e-commerce markets in the world:
| Country | Annual Online Sales | E-commerce Share of Total Retail Sales |
| China | $672 billion | 15.9% |
| United States | $340 billion | 7.5% |
| United Kingdom | $99 billion | 14.5% |
| Japan | $79 billion | 5.4% |
| Germany | $73 billion | 8.4% |
| France | $43 billion | 5.1% |
| South Korea | $37 billion | 9.8% |
| Canada | $30 billion | 5.7% |
| Russia | $20 billion | 2% |
| Brazil | $19 billion | 2.8% |
source: business.com
As you can see, China is a really powerful e-commerce market. It turns out that as much as 40% of the world retail e-commerce revenue is generated by this country. When it comes to Europe, by far the strongest markets are the United Kingdom, Germany, and France. So if you plan to expand your online store and conquer foreign markets, these regions are really worth considering.
4. The Largest E-Commerce Companies in the World
There are several global e-commerce giants, most of them are probably well known to you as they are present in numerous countries. And here is a list of the 8 largest e-commerce companies in the world:
- Amazon, Inc.,
- Jingdong,
- Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.,
- eBay, Inc.,
- Rakuten, Inc.,
- B2W Companhia Digital,
- Zalando,
- Groupon.
Most of the largest companies come from the United States (Amazon, eBay, Groupon) or China (Jingdong, Alibaba). However, it is worth noting that powerful companies from Japan (Rakuten) or Brazil (B2W Companhia Digital) also appear on this list. Interestingly, only one European company is on the list of the largest e-commerce companies – Zalando.
Most of these companies offer e-commerce platforms where you can buy all kinds of products.
5. Reviews Have Real Power
If you run your own e-commerce business, you need to make sure that the reviews are really positive. Why? The answer is pretty simple – users read the reviews before they make a decision to buy a product online.
PowerReview analyzed customer behavior and came to the following conclusions:
- 97% of customers read product reviews,
- 85% of customers search for negative reviews,
- usually, customers read from 1 to 10 reviews before making a purchase decision,
- around 30% of customers do not make a purchase in a brick and mortar shop without reading online reviews first.
6. The Most Popular Payment Methods
And which payment methods are most frequently chosen by customers all over the world? Definitely, most people pay by mobile wallet (41.8%), followed by credit cards (24.2%) or debit cards (10.6%). Importantly, only 4.5% of people decide to pay with cash on delivery.
Remember that your online store should primarily have the option of payment by mobile wallet and credit or debit card. It is worth noting that the popularity of mobile wallets is growing year by year and that soon more than half of online payments will be made using this method.
Just to compare, let’s take a look at what the situation was like not so long ago, in 2017. Even 3 years ago, lots of people preferred to pay by cash on delivery (23%), now this payment method covers considerably smaller market share. On the other hand, mobile payment used to be not so popular (only 14%) and was one of the rarest chosen payment methods.
As you can see, when it comes to payment methods, the situation worldwide is changing dynamically. So it is worth following the current trends and on this basis adjust the payment methods in your online store.
7. Reasons Why Customers Buy Online
There are many reasons why people prefer to shop online instead of going to regular stores. KPMG International carried out a survey which showed that the main reason for the popularity of online stores among customers is the ability to shop whenever they want (58%), whether day or night.
And what else convinces people to buy online? Above all:
- possibility to compare prices offered by different stores (54%),
- products in online stores have better prices (46%),
- buying online is time-saving (40%),
- online stores are a convenient solution – there is no need to go to stores (39%),
- offer in online stores is much richer, they have a larger product range (29%).
These are the most common reasons for choosing online stores. Apart from those, customers also appreciate the possibility to buy products that are not available in their city or country, as well as the free shipping offers or the fact that everything is in one place.
8. Impact of COVID on E-commerce
Has this year’s pandemic significantly affected the situation on the global e-commerce market? Several months have passed since the beginning of the pandemic and it is possible to draw some conclusions.
First of all, let’s pay attention to e-commerce website traffic worldwide. It turns out that since the beginning of this year a continuous increase in traffic in online stores can be noticed. Let’s take a look at the chart prepared by Statista in cooperation with SEMrush:
As you can see, in January 2020 web traffic reached over 16 billion visits, while in June there were already over 5 billion more! It can be concluded that the pandemic has significantly contributed to the growth of the global e-commerce market.
Other statistics on the impact of COVID on the e-commerce market:
- 45% of customers in the United Kingdom care less about Black Friday this year than in previous years,
- this year since the beginning of the pandemic, a 35% increase in e-commerce apps installs in Europe has been observed,
- during the pandemic, Amazon’s traffic increased strongly – In June 2020, traffic was 1% higher than in January 2020 and 8.7% higher compared to the previous year.
9. Shopping Cart Abandonment
Shopping cart abandonment is definitely one of the major problems for online store owners, which results in loss of revenue. Have you ever wondered why people abandon shopping carts and how often does this happen? These statistics will give you some hints:
- 57% – this is the average online shopping cart abandonment rate calculated on the basis of data from 41 countries,
- 65% – the average shopping cart abandonment rate on mobile devices, in turn, transactions on desktops convert much more often, where 73.07% of them don’t end with a purchase,
- when it comes to industries, the most common problem of abandoned shopping carts can occur in finance (6%) and non-profit (83.1%), whereas the least frequently it happens in gaming (64.2%) and fashion (68.3).
- the 3 most common reasons for abandoning shopping carts are:
- too expensive additional costs, such as delivery (50%),
- the necessity of creating an account (28%),
- too complicated checkout process (21%).
10. Free Shipping
Do you offer your customers a free shipping option? It turns out that for many people it is one of the main factors that influence the choice of the online store where they will make their purchase.
Digital Commerce 360 ran a survey in which participants were asked how often the lack of free shipping discouraged them from buying from an online retailer. As many as 17% said that they always pay attention to whether an online store offers a free delivery option, 28% – most of the time, 23% – about half of the time. What is interesting, only 9% of respondents don’t care about free shipping.
Also, customers value not only the possibility of free shipping but also the free return option. And in fact, more and more online stores offer such an option! A survey of Digital Commerce 360 showed that free return shipping is the most important thing when making a return. For customers, easy shipping return and cost of return are also relevant.
11. Conversion Rates
The highest conversion rate possible – this is what we all strive for. How does it look in e-commerce? Here are some key statistics:
- the average conversion rate is 35%,
- e-commerce has the lowest conversion rate (1.84%), whereas finance website the highest (5.01%),
- when it comes to traffic source, the highest conversion rate has paid search (9%), followed by organic traffic (2.8%), referral (2.6%) and email (2.3%),
- user-generated content contributes to the increase of conversion rate by 161%,
- desktop users convert at 14%, for tablets conversion rate is 3.36%, while for mobile devices – only 1.53%.
E-commerce is the Future!
The numbers never lie and show that the e-commerce market really has a promising future and that it is worth investing in an online store. It is estimated that current trends will also continue in the following years, which means that the number of customers who regularly shop online will increase and as a result – the e-commerce market will rise!
Do you want to start your e-commerce business or take your online store to the next level? Do not hesitate to contact us. Our SEO specialists, thanks to their expertise and excellent understanding of the e-commerce market, will prepare a great long-term SEO strategy for you, which in time will increase the visibility in the search results, traffic to your website, and conversion rate.
It’s amazing how e-commerce is growing, in such a short time. I suppose the predictions on how will it perform in the next few years were done before COVID-19 hit. Wondering if that will make e-commerce even more popular.