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2023 Ecommerce Stats & Trends Report – Webinar

2023 Ecommerce Stats & Trends Report – Webinar


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Welcome to the SaleCycle 2023 Black Friday Ecommerce Stats & Trends Report Webinar, presented by Brad Ward our SEO & Content Manager and author of this report, and Casey Turnbull, our Marketing Specialist at SaleCycle.

Watch and listen as we explore key findings of the most ecommerce, so that you can utilise the trends and behaviours from:

  • Over 6 billion user-journeys tracked
  • Over 5 million online conversions witnessed over 480 million abandoned baskets
  • Over 120 million cart abandonment emails sent

…to utilise for your business’s online marketing plan. You can also find a transcript of the entire webinar below, so you can refer back to the key findings discussed.

SaleCycle are dedicated to helping ecommerce businesses discover key information, along with expert insights, to improve conversion rates across the board – from abandoned baskets to key buying times – especially during important sales events. 

About This Report [00:00]

CASEY

Hello and welcome to this SaleCycle webinar, where we’ll be discussing key findings from the 2023 Ecommerce Stats and Trends Report. I’m Casey-Leigh Turnbull, and I’m an Ecommerce Marketing Specialist, and I’m here with our Global Digital Marketing Manager and the author of this report, Brad Ward. 

BRAD

Hi, everyone. Yeah, so in this webinar, we’re going to be looking to provide some helpful tips, some stats and we’re going to analyse some of the data that we presented in our ebook, and hopefully we can provide some actionable tips for you guys to improve your marketing campaigns.

Mobile Statistics [00:37]

CASEY

So let’s delve into this. Before we get into some significant findings across the industry sectors, first we should take a look at some important device statistics to learn exactly how customers are purchasing. 

So as we can see here, mobile accounts for over 55% of all online sales, which shows that mobile commerce is gaining traction across the globe. And this may not be surprising to those who love to shop online – but it’s actually the online fashion industry that takes up the majority of this with more and more consumers turning to their mobile devices to shop, especially because of things like buy buttons on visual social media platforms. 

When you think about Instagram and Pinterest, you’ve got a big urge to buy because everything is easily accessible with one click. And so buying has never been more easy, quick and easily accessible.

We can also see here the growth of mobile ecommerce doesn’t stop with activity. In fact, mobile now accounts for 75% of online users, which is a 4% increase on last year. So this could be a generational trend as more users are using mobile as their preferred choice… Definitely something you should consider in your marketing strategy.

SaleCycle-Webinar-Online-Sales-By-Device



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Online Sales By Month [01:58]

BRAD

Moving onto online sales by day of the month: What we’ve pinpointed here is that the significant impact of payday online sales is pretty big. It sounds obvious, but many brands are tailoring their products or tailoring their promotions and campaigns to fit into this sweet spot of online conversions. 

So what we’ve noticed here – through all the conversions that we track all year, which is in the millions – we found that the 25th to the 28th of the month, next more sales than any other time in that month, so it really does make sense to figure out that there’s more sales and more traffic at this particular point during these three or four days. So tailor your marketing campaigns around these to target payday consumers. This is an important nugget of information here for brands.

SaleCycle-Webinar-Online-Sales-By-Month

The Impact Of Payday [02:54]

BRAD

Research has found that payday consumers are more likely to purchase promotion focused products, and ones that are perceived to improve their quality of life. That basically means try and tailor your marketing copy, try and tailor your product pages and the different types of messaging that you put around your conversion funnel (like the checkout) to really hammer home that psychology that this [purchase] is going to improve your quality of life. This really is a promotion for payday and you might be able to see some increase in online sales.

Online Activity Timeline [03:28]

CASEY

So when we look further into activity timelines, we can see a whole year’s worth of peaks and troughs. So this includes periods at the end of the month, but it also includes really big events that happen throughout the year. At the beginning of the year here, you can see this massive peak before it drops off exponentially after the January sales.

Then we have significant peaks for things like Mother’s Day – which has just happened.

A trough can be seen here for Easter Sunday when there’s not that much marketing going around on the internet, but maybe businesses like flower companies and card companies are doing really well during these times. But then we really see this pick up quite a bit again for international Mother’s Day where it’s more sales, proving a little bit more popular.

But, of course, right at the end of the scale (at the end of the traffic timeline), we can see the massive events that take place: Singles Day, Black Friday, Cyber Monday and Thanksgiving. The World Cup actually began around this time and didn’t end until December, so sales really skyrocketed so we can see lots of activity here.

SaleCycle-Webinar-Online-Traffic-Timeline

BRAD

The thing about November is that if you look at that graph, you can see from January/ February all the way to September/ October, the online traffic either decreasing or staying the same.

Because of the impact of November, it’s almost like the Cheltenham Festival for ecommerce brands. Ecommerce brands should be looking at Black Friday as their main event of the year because the stats don’t lie. It’s the most online sales, it’s the most online traffic, it’s the least amount of cart abandonment. And it’s probably the most important time for any peek online brands to pull in conversions. So it’s probably even worth getting the solution in place for abandonment or setting up your marketing campaigns months in advance. I’m really planning for this major event towards the end of the year. 

CASEY

You can definitely agree because you can really see in September here that people are you can tell maybe waiting for the events to happen. They are saving up for things like Christmas presents. All of that happens in November. 

So as you can see here, August until September really dipped until October, followed by that massive peak in November – so I can’t agree more. 

AI In Marketing [05:58]

And actually, if we read in the news lately and on social media, all everyone is talking about is artificial intelligence (or AI). In recent years, the advances in the field of machine learning and computer vision have allowed AI to start having a real impact on online businesses. So it’s not just for things like writing an assessment, AI is actually for online businesses as well.. So from practical tasks like forecasting, demand and stock levels, setting prices, product design, new ways of connecting with customers, and more importantly, when customers like to buy (and when they’re not buying) in order to push sales. And using something like this (an online traffic timeline) and really taking that into consideration is important going forwards.

Cart Abandonment Rates by Device [06:55]

BRAD

So we touched a little bit on cart abandonment but cart abandonment rate on mobile is higher. Of course and that’s probably for a number of reasons. Perhaps the first reason is that there’s a lot more online traffic on mobile than there is on desktop, therefore the opportunity to abandon is far greater.

But at the same time, we all browse our phones for fun. We browse on our phones, whether we’re looking for trainers or jumpers, or when we’re looking for holidays – and have no intent to buy. We’re literally a little bit bored, or we’re on the train and we’re just browsing on our mobile – so it’s a lot easier to abandon and get distracted. But what’s interesting is – that is where the customers are. The customers are on their mobile. So it’s almost like a challenge for ecommerce for us to say, hey, this where all of our customers are: “Yesterday I was here for fun, but convert me, I’m willing to be converted, or at the very least I’m willing to take a basket reminder two days later to remind me of what I was browsing”. 

CASEY

I’ve definitely got an example of that. I definitely browse for fun, add things to wish lists for fun (which is a really clever thing to have on an app or an online site). And what I tend to do is look out for when brands promote to say that the items that I’ve saved while I was bored are in the sale, or they’re going out of stock – so I can definitely vouch for that.

SaleCycle-Webinar-Cart-Abandonment-By-Device

Cart Abandonment Rates By Sector [08:28]

CASEY

When we look at cart abandonment by category: retail, fashion and travel, and the average abandonment rate for all of these categories – we can see that abandonment rates lie heavily in the fashion industry when we break up each sector. 

But as we’ve said before when it comes to fashion, abandonment rates – things like browsing and adding to wish lists just for fun – can be part of that. Also, there’s a combination of a lower AOV compared to the overall retail industry. Also, the visual aspect of browsing, comparing, and eventually selecting that piece of clothing. We can only expect to see high levels of cart abandonment rates here.

But quite unusually, and quite interestingly, we can see that the overall abandonment rate for the travel industry isn’t too far behind the fashion sector, which is a little bit shocking considering the higher AOVs. In fact, the overall cart abandonment rate in the travel sector has dropped by 2% year on year, which in the grand scheme of things is quite significant. So maybe this infers that the ability to browse is becoming more accessible across all sectors thanks to the evolution of mobile technology. But, no matter the industry, it’s important to implement onsite messaging, perhaps with discounts and seasonal sales, as well as persuasive email marketing to remind shoppers of their recent browsing session to combat that cart abandonment.

SaleCycle-Webinar-Cart-Abandonment-By-Category

Cart Abandonment Rates By Region [10:00]

BRAD

Carrying on with abandonment, we’re looking at abandonment rate by region, and what we can see here is Asia and the Pacific have been slightly more tech savvy over the years. Perhaps ecommerce brands have already caught on to the importance of cart abandonment recovery. For example, cart abandonment has resulted in over 260 billion in lost orders over recent years – and that’s been discovered by Visa. 

It’s really important to try and recover as many online sales as possible. And the fact that the majority of online sales happen on mobile, it feels like the Asian and Pacific brands have already caught on to this trend a lot quicker than in the West. The technical advancements in this region have clearly overtaken the West as mentioned, and perhaps it’s happened out of necessity. There’s a high appetite in Asia Pacific for online shopping, so the brands have really understood and they have – in turn – acted a little bit more entrepreneurial. Whereas in the West (the likes of Europe and North America), there’s still a little bit more shopping happening in person.

SaleCycle-Webinar-Cart-Abandonment-By-Region

Retail Sector Key Trends [11:10]

CASEY

So, now we’re going to look at sales via mobile versus desktop trends in the retail sector. 

As we’ve talked about before, nowadays, users change their device multiple times throughout the day. So on a standard day, for example, we’re online shopping, we’re browsing social media, we’re working online (more frequently since the COVID pandemic). So that could be a big factor in more device switching. 

As we’re working from home and online, and even things like search on Google can result in device switching, so there’s always that little bit of persuasion to shop. This means optimising both digital experiences is more nuanced than what we might originally think. 

Being aware of the differences and similarities between your mobile and desktop audience really can help you discover new ways to tailor the customer journey. So for example, we can see here that in the retail sector, people like to browse via mobile, and then complete the customer journey via desktop. So it’s really important to understand device switching when it comes to online retail.

SaleCycle-Webinar-Mobile-Desktop-Retail

Travel Sector Key Trends [12:28]

BRAD

The travel sector is a little bit different due to the complexity of the travel booking process, combined with higher average order volumes. It’s no surprise that desktop leads the online sales in this industry.

Although desktop are taking a bit more of the share when it comes to online traffic compared to other sectors, the real story here is that the trouble with the booking process is quite complex so people want to do it on a bigger screen, or perhaps they want to put a little bit more time and a little bit more effort and a little bit more attention into this booking process because it’s so expensive, and they feel comfortable sitting at the desk. 

SaleCycle-Webinar-Mobile-Desktop-Travel

Fashion Sector Key Trends [13:25]

CASEY

When it comes to the fashion sector, we can see here that mobile is the clear title holder for online activity. As we’ve mentioned, in ecommerce, there’s a whole new generation of online consumers who use smartphones as their main mode of shopping – so online presence is huge; it’s really important. So, email marketing and seasonal sales for the fashion industry is not only important and really really popular, but it’s a common standard in reaching a wider and much more engaged audience. This, combined with the typically younger demographic of the fashion industry, means that fashion consumers rely on digital devices now more than ever and we can clearly see that through the results here.

SaleCycle-Webinar-Mobile-Desktop-Fashion

Email Marketing [14:18]

BRAD

We also just wanted to pick out some email marketing key findings. We track retail, fashion, and travel and some other key findings from the different industries here. So for example, the open rate in the travel industry leads the pack. Whereas in retail, they kind of lead the pack with conversions. And then the fashion industry leads the pack with clicks.

One of the main reasons that people want to open the emails in the travel industry is because the content is usually a  little bit more visual and the contents is more dynamic – and I guess because of the high average order value, if there is a discount code in there or a sale, it makes a lot more difference to the price. And then quite interestingly in fashion, the click rates are high now.

We know that fashion brands are very good at abandonment campaigns with the likes of voucher codes and discount codes – and consumers are very interested in this. They want to click through to the website from the email and see how much stock is left, or if the price has changed. Maybe the need to double check the delivery – all these types of information is really important to the user really drives those conversions.

SaleCycle-Webinar-Email-Marketing

Further Resources [15:42]

CASEY

This has been the 2023 ecommerce stats and trends webinar. And just so you know, down below in our resources tab, you can download the report if you haven’t already – It’s free to download!

And you can also visit our website at SaleCycle.com, where we cover everything from abandoned sales to customer loyalty, customer insights, and of course, conversion rate optimisation. There’s plenty more on our website!

And also if you check us out on socials, we do a lot of case studies, polls, and lots of posts that target pain areas in your industry.

BRAD

Just a thank you from me as well. If you have any questions about the data that we’ve presented, or you want to delve a little deeper, please just reach out and send an email. We’ll be able to help you! If you want to have a conversion rate optimisation audit on your website, we can arrange that as well. 

Thank you for listening!

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Casey Turnbull

Casey is a Fashion Journalism graduate & ecommerce marketing executive at SaleCycle. Casey is committed to producing high quality content backed by in-depth research and data. She has experience developing content in a range of sectors including fashion, ecommerce and sports.