Ecommerce 2021 Roundup, and What Awaits Us Next

It is the second year since the beginning of the pandemic, and we are ready to share the new statistics. Let’s talk about eCommerce, popular product categories, user behavior and what businesses need to do in 2022 to make more profit in online sales.

Ecommerce is the trend of today

Over the past 7 years, the number of people buying online has increased by 61%. In 2014, it was 1.32 billion people, and in 2021 — 2.14 billion people.

According to statistics, there are 7.87 billion people in the world, which means 27.2% of the world’s population shop online.

Why online shopping is in demand

Globalwebindex conducted a survey of tens of thousands of respondents and identified a number of reasons why consumers choose to shop in online stores.

reasons why consumers choose to shop in online stores

The most common answers were:

“Free delivery” in 53% of cases
“Availability of discounts” 41%
“Feedback from other customers” 35%.

Consumers are finding online shopping more attractive because of the new opportunities it provides. For example, when coming to an offline store, you will not be able to get real customer feedback on the product, and in an online store they are publicly available.

If you are the owner of an online store or just want to create one, pay attention to these reasons. Add them to the list of available opportunities for your customers and you will see your business grow.

How much money does one customer make?

Very interesting statistics that show how much income one customer from a particular country brings to an average business.

The highest income comes from the US client — $ 1,804, while the Russian client brings only $396. This is a ranking of the top 10 countries, followed by dozens of others.

How the pandemic affected consumer spending in retail

In February 2021, statistics were collected in the United States, which showed in which categories of goods there was an increase in sales, and which decreased.

The first places are occupied by essential goods:

food (17%);
household goods (4%);
goods for animals (2%).

A small increase of 1% was shown in the categories of fuels, household items and medical supplies.

And then — a drop in sales by the following categories of goods: tobacco products (-3%), food delivery (-10%), toys (-15%), beauty (-21%), electronics (-30%) , jewelry (-35%) and accessories (-35%).

Brief conclusion: Essentials will always be necessary. These statistics do not indicate that other categories of goods or services are not relevant. It’s just that the amount of money spent on them is lower than on others.

How the behavior of buyers changed during the pandemic

If we briefly summarize the statistics and data from various sources, we can identify three main facts:

Consumers have started buying health and hygiene products and basic household items online.
Convenience and speed of the site on which they make purchases have become important to buyers.
The future lies in the connection between the offline point of sale and the online store.

New products to buy

We used to go shopping to buy the goods we needed. We bought things on the Internet that were not available in local stores, or they were cheaper online. With the pandemic, everything changed. Now we buy online for other reasons:

Less interaction with people who may be sick
You can order everything you need at once, and not go shopping several times a week
It’s cheaper and faster

Convenience of the site for the buyer

In offline stores there are amenities provided for the customers: air conditioning, comfortable seating areas and the opportunity to drink a cup of coffee. But most businesses that have gone online forgot to make their website a cozy place for the customer. It is equally important for the client to be comfortable on the site and make purchases.

Here are some tips from Weblium team:

Make your sites adaptive to different devices. Mobile and tablet versions are created automatically on Weblium.
Don’t add dozens of pop-ups and suggestions to the screen. Just one pop-up and a cookie with consent to collect cookies.
Give the opportunity to buy in one click without registration.
Do not require to fill in dozens of fields to buy or order a service. For an online store it is enough to know the name, phone number and delivery address.
Make site design simple and clear. Ask a stranger to come to your site and find the product they want, and then find out what they think. If it takes them a long time, then it turns out that you lose a lot of potential buyers — simplify.

Offline and online — now together

In some countries, offline stores may operate under certain conditions. And the business began to combine two sales channels, where one complements the other.

For example, you can come to the offline Puma store and try on sneakers there, and buy online, because the website offers a 5% discount. This is convenient for the user: they have already tested the product and bought it from you, but in a more convenient place and with a certain benefit.

You can use the following scheme in reverse: the site offers special products that can be purchased only in the offline store, but the promo code for a discount can be obtained only on the site. Make connections between the two sales channels and you will see the growth of your business.

As more and more people shop online every year, there has never been a better time to open your own online store. Weblium can help you solve this task — an intuitive website builder with 24/7 human support. You can create an online store, landing page, multipage and any other site using ready-made templates and blocks. The average time to create one site is 1.5 hours.

Business tips for 2022

Statistics have shown that the growth of eCommerce is accelerating worldwide. You should not be afraid, but start working on your site today and win your customers online.

Create your own online store or website with online services. It’s an absolute must, and Weblium will help.
Sell something online that has not been sold before, there is a demand for it.
The site should be user-friendly. Put a “comfortable chair” for your customer and offer “a cup of coffee” — they will definitely buy from you and bring friends.
If you have an offline shop — combine it with the site, and let them complement each other.
Every year, online sales are going to increase their percentage compared to offline — the best time to start is now.