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Double-Digit Ecommerce Growth in 2014

Ecommerce is Awesome

Last week, comScore released an ecommerce report measuring the growth of U.S. spending online since 2008. Closing the first quarter of 2014 marked the EIGHTEENTH consecutive quarter of growth in ecommerce and the FOURTEENTH consecutive quarter of double-digit industry growth.

2014 is now the sixth straight year of positive growth for the ecommerce industry, pulling double-digit gains since 2010. Not bad for an economy that’s seen better days. We’re sitting at $56 billion a year spent online, just on the desktop.
(It’s safe to say we’re on a roll here, people.)

Mobile, Even More Awesome

What’s more awesome to watch? The rise of mobile commerce within this space. Last quarter alone showed a 23% increase in spending over Q1 of 2013, topping out at $7.3 billion. Making mobile commerce a little over 12% of the total ecommerce spend this year, at $63.4 billion. That’s right, mobile owns over 10% of the ecommerce spending now.

Mobile Commerce Growth 2014

Within the mobile spend, smartphones accounted for over half the purchasing, pushing a heavy 62% of the conversions (est – $4.53 billion). While tablets, interestingly enough, only pulled in the remaining 38% (est – $2.8 billion). Either way, the consistant growth of ecommerce across all mediums should be enough to convince anyone to start selling online.

Mobile Commerce spending 2014

Who’s Benefiting the Most from the Growth?

The top-performing product categories being solid online in 2014 are:

  • Apparel & Accessories
  • Consumer Packaged Goods
  • Sport & Fitness
  • Digital Content & Subscriptions
  • Home & Garden

Each of these categories saw an increase of 13% or more over Q1 – 2013

If you’re an online retailer in one of these industries and you’d like to sell more product – Contact Us!

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What Does the Year-Over-Year Spending Look Like?

The U.S. definitely trends heavily with spending in the holiday season. Q4 traditionally pulls the weight of each year with a 25-30% bump over previous quarters. This naturally makes the end of the year a prime target for online retailers.

Ecommerce Mobile Growth us online spending

How to Capitalize on the Industry Growth

Big or small, the best way to capitalize on all these ‘BILLIONZ’ is to provide the absolute best experience possible. Having products online is great, but with a growing market, saturation of competition dilutes the ‘being there’ edge. Consumers need more from retailers in regards to service and interaction. Remember: Zappo’s beat Amazon with service, not price (Then Amazon bought them).

Giving consumers a premiere online retail experience begins with the basics. Without intelligent, consumer-focused technology, the sheer volume of manual tasks becomes enormous. The right shopping cart combined with the right site search/navigation technology plays a huge part in carving out a niche as a stand-out e-tailer. The technology you use should drive sales, not hinder them.