Is Digital Commerce Growth in Jeopardy? Quick Overview of the Latest Salesforce Report

09 August 2022

It can’t be denied, that online shoppers are now spending less than they used to. To understand their recent behavior and see where the global ecommerce growth trend is heading, see the latest online shopping statistics gathered last month by Salesforce.

E-commerce News

Gosia Chłopicka

3min.

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Digital Commerce Growth in Jeopardy?

Surely, for some time now online shoppers have reasons for counting every cent before clicking on the ‘order’ button. With their belts tightened up a bit more than before, according to Salesforce, e-customers spent 4% less in the second quarter of 2022, digital traffic noticed a 2% decrease, and the global digital commerce growth has dropped as much as 6%. The latter has been continuously decreasing from Q3 2021 starting at 12%, losing almost a half in 2021 Q4 (7%), suffering -2% in Q1 2022, reaching now the mentioned -6%. [caption id="attachment_56517" align="aligncenter" width="1288"]

Digital Commerce Growth year to year. Source: salesforce.com[/caption]

Order & Traffic by Device

Traffic doesn’t change much when it comes to the device it’s generated on. Over 70% of shoppers use their cell phones to look for things they want to buy online. 26% of them find it easy to shop for items on their computers, leaving a small percentage of 4% for tablet users. When it comes to the orders made online, the ones finalized on computers come up to 36%, leaving 61% and 3% for mobile and tablet purchases respectively.

This indicates that a big part of internet users look for information about a particular product on their cell phones, to later switch the device, making the final purchase on a computer.

It’s also worth noting that this trend has been continuing for a few quarters now.

Conversion Rate

It appears that European online shoppers are the keenest on taking up action: signing up, filling in forms, and clicking on CTA buttons. The Netherlands, the UK, and Germany are the countries generating the highest conversion rate in Q2 2022: 3.3%, 2.7%, and 2.5% respectively. The USA conversion rate reaches 2.5%. On the opposite side, there are Latin America and Italy generating no more than a 1% conversion rate.

Shopper Spend & AOV

A big shocker comes now: the average amount of money online visitors spend by a visit in an e-store has dropped drastically from $3.05 in the fourth quarter of 2021 to $2.50 in the first quarter of 2022. Now, the trend is visibly changing. It’s slowly getting higher, reaching $2.61 in Q2 2022. [caption id="attachment_56519" align="aligncenter" width="1292"]

Shoppers spend year to year. Source: salesforce.com[/caption] The average discount rate offered by e-stores has dropped from 17% in 2021 Q4 to 15% in the two subsequent quarters. The average amount left in an e-store reaches $100.31 per order.

Social Traffic

The traffic generated by social media seems to be slowly losing its power since the sudden drop in the second quarter of 2021 from 9% to 8% in Q2 2022. This trend is especially noticeable for mobile devices having 12% in 2021 Q2, dropping to 10% in Q2 2022.

What Is Pummeling Digital Commerce Growth?

Numbers don’t lie, do they? The data presented above gathered from 1 billion online shoppers by Salesforce seems to be pretty obvious. With the sudden surge in gasoline prices and growing inflation, consumer behavior may not change anytime soon. Some of Shanghai's biggest ports are still closed or work less effectively than they used to due to lockdown, and this fact shouldn’t be ignored while talking about the nearest future of ecommerce. With fewer products available in the shops - especially toys, educational supplies, and household appliances - customers simply can’t buy as many items as they want to. This leaves us with a conclusion: if you have noticed a drop in your sales or traffic recently, take a closer look at the prevailing trends. It’s highly possible your marketing decisions are right. The thing is that there are some unexpected adversities that might affect absolutely everyone from your niche - not just you. The whole ecommerce industry is trying to defy the odds nowadays. Keeping this in mind while trying to find the core of what exactly caused your sales to drop may help you endure and go through those rainy days more peacefully.