E-commerce landscape for 2024
I have been catching up on some marketing and e-commerce trends for 2024.
This year, 20.1% of all retail purchases are expected to be conducted online, with projections suggesting an increase to 23% by 2027. The global e-commerce market is on track to reach $6.3 trillion in 2024, up from $5.8 trillion in 2023, and is anticipated to climb to over $7.9 trillion by 2027.
Amazon, which holds 37.6% of e-commerce sales, and significant traffic sites like eBay and AliExpress are the current e-commerce giants. Social media is important in e-commerce, with $992 billion spent through these platforms in 2022 and an expected surge to $8.5 trillion by 2030.
Mobile commerce is set to become increasingly prevalent, with smartphone sales anticipated to make up 62% of all retail sales by 2027. However, e-commerce fraud remains a significant concern, with losses due to fraud expected to increase from $41 billion in 2022 to $48 billion in 2023.
The challenges of online shopping are also addressed, including high cart abandonment rates due to extra costs and slow shipping. A cart abandonment rate of 70% is expected. Strategies to mitigate issues like excessive abandonment (over the 70% expected baseline) should be used and are crucial for improving customer experience and sales.
If your business has a limited product line and no expansion plans, expect minimal year-over-year growth between now and 2027. Make your website mobile-first, and don't rely on gimmicks or flashy UI to convert customers. Instead, focus on a pleasant, clean mobile experience. Most consumers want to buy your product and get on with their lives. After completing their order, the checkout success page is great for upselling and getting the consumer back into your flow. When possible, offer affiliate links to other products that complement your own.
Shopify's research and development (R&D) expenses in 2023 were $1.73 billion, a 15.1% increase from 2022. This is up from $1.503 billion in 2022, a 75.92% increase from 2021, and $0.854 billion in 2021, a 54.74% increase from 2020. In 2022, Shopify spent $1.96 billion on R&D, the highest among leading corporate R&D spenders, according to Research Infosource. Even if you don't use Shopify, there's no reason not to benefit from their checkout experience. In my opinion, their checkout flow is the best out there and should be emulated whenever possible.
Data Sources:
https://www.forbes.com/advisor/business/ecommerce-statistics/
https://researchinfosource.com/
(image generated by DALL-E on ChatGPT-4)