These 10 ecommerce stats will help eBay, Amazon and other online sellers identify how to sell successfully in 2023 and beyond.
In this article you’ll find:
Last Updated on May 28, 2023 by Zeljko Drazovic
Click the links below to go directly to the ecommerce statistics of your interest:
#1: Global B2B ecommerce market size expands at a rate of 18.7%
#2: Digital ad spend accelerated 49%
#3: 70% of online buyers purchase from foreign sites
#4: 96% of small businesses on eBay export to an average of 17 countries
#5: 48% of online shoppers go straight to a large ecommerce marketplace
#6: 73% of millennials are involved in the B2B buying process
#7: The global AI market is to reach a $190.61 billion market value in 2025
#8: For 8 out of 10 consumers, sustainability is important when making purchasing decisions
#9: 85% of consumers prefer free shipping over fast shipping
Whether you sell on eBay, Amazon or other marketplaces, it’s important that you keep track of the latest ecommerce statistics and trends. The fast changing ecommerce industry as well as world transforming events and phenomena, such as Brexit or coronavirus, can have a big impact on global ecommerce.
For this reason, staying one step ahead of what’s happening today is essential.
The following stats and data will tell you more about the changing online buying habits, international sales, ecommerce advertising, worldwide shipping, AI and sustainability in ecommerce and much more.
Let’s dig in.
With online shopping overtaking traditional retail, ecommerce is booming on a global scale. The growing number of online marketplaces, buyers and cross-border purchases stimulate the market’s growth.
According to Mike Bishop, COO at Webinterpret:
Online Cross Border Trade is growing faster than the overall ecommerce market and this trend is forecast to continue.
Today being first in organic results on popular marketplaces, such as eBay or Amazon, may not give the best results. Due to the prominence of paid ads, the first organic result may not appear until the middle of the page, or even closer to the bottom!
For instance, on eBay in popular categories, over 50% of the first page of search results can be sponsored products. This includes the first 5 search results that are getting the most clicks.
All the same, there are many benefits of ecommerce advertising. Ads on marketplaces positively impact product page views, transactions and revenue. In general, they’re very effective for a short boost in sales.
However, an effective long-term advertising strategy is a completely different thing. Sometimes sellers must put in more advertising effort, another time products can sell relatively easily with no (excessive) ad spend.
Advertising, to a large extent, is about striking a balance between investing money and getting results.
This usually requires advertising knowledge and experience, e.g. a good understanding of the specifics of a given market or the demand and competition dynamics. Unfortunately, many sellers aren’t familiar with how advertising on specific platforms works. This way they can lose both paid and organic traffic.
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According to eMarketer, 80% of retailers worldwide agree that cross-border trade has been profitable or that sellers have successfully increased sales as much as 1,000% after expanding their marketplace presence.
International ecommerce expansion is especially effective when paid marketing campaigns reach a plateau in the seller’s domestic/current market. Increasing CPCs further to grow traffic can decrease campaign clicks, sales and the overall profitability.
In such situations less competitive markets can offer lower CPCs and better return on advertising spend.
Additionally, the possibility of satisfying the unmet demand abroad is one of the biggest worldwide opportunities for marketplace sellers. On Amazon and eBay you can sell on markets with more sales potential and less competition.
It’s also worth adding that during challenging times, such as the current pandemic, selling on international markets often allows sellers to plan and balance the sales between markets, spread their risk and make the most of diversification.
The lockdown and social distancing usually encourage additional populations to purchase online. However, consumer behavior related to cross-border ecommerce imports differs depending on the stage of the pandemic in each market.
If the country is within the peak of the outbreak, a slowdown of cross-border imports can be expected. It’s important for international merchants to try to minimize potential shipping delays and keep their clients informed. Reliable parcel tracking tools and simple return options should also help in reassuring buyers.
With cross-border ecommerce on the rise, eBay sellers that can strategically introduce their products on international markets have an excellent opportunity to expand their customer reach.
It’s worth considering foreign markets where local online sellers aren’t able to offer specific products or meet the local demand. For example, Italy shows a lack of dynamism in the local offering and many products have to be imported from abroad, e.g. clothes from foreign brands or vehicle parts for cars.
Many consumers don’t start with Google or retail websites when they want to purchase products, but with marketplaces.
Selling on online marketplaces has many benefits. Above all, online shoppers are flocking to marketplaces like eBay, Amazon or Walmart to do their shopping, compare prices or start their purchase journey.
Additionally, one of the most common concerns of shoppers buying from independent websites and unknown brands is the lack of trust at the moment of completing the purchase and entering payment details.
The reality is that people are more likely to buy from sellers looking like legitimate retailers who sell on established marketplaces. This way, online store owners can automatically benefit from the platform’s own brand-building.
Finally, B2B ecommerce sales through websites and online marketplaces are accelerating. According to Gartner, the enterprise marketplace is a new business model that:
Marketplaces serve as a one-stop-shop for B2B buyers, being more efficient in time and cost.
Reaching Generation Z and millennials will become increasingly important in the future as their purchasing power continues to grow in the coming years.
However, don’t forget older customers who are feeling more and more comfortable shopping online. Interestingly, it’s not only due to the pandemic, but also technology becoming more intuitive and easier to use.
When creating your marketing campaigns for people over 50 years old, remember you’re reaching those people who’d previously shopped in-store. Thus, consider offering discounts on products your older customers tend to buy.
Today Artificial Intelligence and automation play a massive role in transforming global ecommerce, especially when it comes to improving customer experience and selling internationally. For example, Natural Language Processing (NLP), a branch of AI, is the driving force behind language translation apps, such as Google Translate, and ecommerce translation solutions.
Also, Webinterpret’s AI-based, ecommerce-optimized translation system uses innovative NLP technology that allows machines to analyze product data. The goal is to establish context in order to achieve the best adapted translations and thus maximize chances of selling a product on specific international markets.
Such ecommerce-optimized machine translation differs from standard machine translation as it’s built and trained specifically for ecommerce products in the ecommerce context.
Watch a video from Adrien Salvat, ecommerce expert and Webinterpret CEO, sharing his insights about how the AI revolution is impacting the marketplace shopping experience and online sellers’ reality:
In light of our planet’s finite resources, consumers are increasingly becoming aware of the need for sustainability. In fact, the pandemic has deepened consumers’ environmental concerns.
As more and more buyers are looking for products and brands that align with their eco-friendly values, retail is going green.
Additionally, endeavours to limit high levels of pollution created by the freight industry is likely to have a pretty big impact on the ecommerce sector.
To gain eco-conscious customers’ loyalty, sellers should strive to create more sustainable & greener practices for their businesses, for example by:
Free shipping can be the ultimate sales maker at the final stages in the online purchase decision process. “Free” is a powerful notion: we tend to overvalue many things that come for free, considering it a good deal.
However, not all sellers can afford to offer free shipping, especially if they sell internationally. For this reason, many international online sellers will be better off having local fulfilment centres, close to the buyers.
Practical example. If you’re a British online merchant trading in the US, keep part of your stock in the US, close to your US customers. This will lower your shipping costs, but will also shorten delivery times and increase customer satisfaction.
About Webinterpret
Webinterpret supports merchants selling on big, international ecommerce platforms, such as eBay and Amazon as well as local marketplaces like Allegro or Cdiscount. Our AI-based solution enables selling more effectively with automated listing localization, marketing, and logistics (shipping and returns).
By giving your international customers a full end-to-end local shopping experience, Webinterpret improves your conversion and helps establish your business on a global scale.
Our marketplace offer is constantly expanding – if you want to grow your online sales, feel free to contact our sales experts. They will help you analyze your international sales potential and choose markets that will offer you the best possible return on investment.
Webinterpret enables online retailers and marketplace sellers on eBay and Amazon to instantly expand worldwide and boost their online sales.
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