[Editor’s Note: This post was originally published in March of 2019. We’ve fully updated with all new stats for 2020 to keep it relevant.]

As an ecommerce retailer, you can never have too much data. The more ecommerce statistics you have to work with, the better you can benchmark and optimize your own ecommerce store’s performance.

That said, how do retailers make that data work for them? The sheer wealth of ecommerce statistics available can be overwhelming, identifying which sources are most reliable is tough, and organizing all the information out there takes time.

To help online retail teams leverage the data to make good decisions, we’ve gathered 85 ecommerce statistics from trustworthy sources, grouped them into common categories, and even included suggestions on how you can improve your own results. With these data points, your retail team can make better decisions about how to divide resources and where to direct your energies this year.

General Industry

21.55% of the world’s population buys online. (source: Sleeknote)

In 2019,14.1% of all retail sales worldwide were e-retail sales. (source: Statista)

30% of consumers say they would rather buy from a website they’ve bought from previously than from an unfamiliar store. (source: Sleeknote)

Men spend 68% more online than women. (source: KPMG)

The fastest growth in retail ecommerce between now and 2022 is expected to happen in India and Indonesia. (source: Statista)

Source

Experts predict that 95% of purchases will be ecommerce purchases by 2040. (source: Nasdaq)

The top nations for ecommerce spending include China and the United States. (source: Spaceshop Commerce)

59% of millennials always or often check Amazon first when shopping online. (source: Inviqa)

Payments/Checkout Ecommerce

The average documented online cart abandonment rate is 69.57%. (source: Baymard Institute)

58.6% of consumers abandon a cart because they only wanted to browse or weren’t ready to buy. (source: Baymard Institute)

23% of consumers will abandon a cart because of a lengthy, complicated checkout process. (source: Baymard Institute)

The average ecommerce site can improve its conversion rate by 35% just with a better checkout process design. (source: Baymard Institute)

15% of online shoppers have signed up for a consumer subscription. (source: McKinsey)

The subscription ecommerce economy has grown by 100% a year over the past five years, and women account for 60% of subscribers. (source: McKinsey)

An active subscriber holds on average of two subscriptions, but nearly 35% have three or more. (source: McKinsey)

8% of consumers cite personalization as the most important factor in subscription services. (source: McKinsey)

42% of online shoppers prefer to pay with their credit card (as opposed to services like PayPal). (source: Statista)

51% of consumers are ready to spend more to qualify for free shipping. (source: NRF)

Source

The average global abandonment rate is 87.9% for airline sites, with the travel industry average at 81%. (source: SaleCycle)

Source

PayPal owns 60% of the market share for online payment, making it the top online payment gateway. (source: Datanyze)

Business Insider Intelligence predicts that, by 2024, revenue for online payment processors will reach $138 billion. (source: Business Insider)

Statista estimates the total transaction value in digital payments this year (2020) will amount to $4,769,370. (source: Statista)

How to Improve Payment/Checkout Performance

Lifting checkout conversion rates is one of the biggest challenges retailers face, as evidenced by these ecommerce statistics. E-tailers need to innovate at points of sale in order to get a jump on their competitors.

Alternative financing is a powerful way to introduce innovation into the ecommerce funnel. Bread’s white-label software integrates with ecommerce platforms and allows consumers to spread payments over time with zero interest levied. This allows retailers to increase consumer purchasing power while reducing pain points around big-ticket purchases.

Pay-over-time options are just one way of reducing friction around payment. Find out more about how to create frictionless checkouts.

Mobile Ecommerce

Shopping was the fastest-growing use for our phones in 2017, up 54% year-over-year. (source: Shopify)

57% of Statista survey respondents said they used a mobile retail app to learn more about a product or service. (source: Statista)

Total m-commerce sales for 2019 was $2.32 trillion. (source: Oberlo)

Mobile sales accounted for 69% of Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales in 2019. (source: Shopify)

Mobile commerce sales broke records on both Black Friday and Cyber Monday in 2019, raking in $2.9 billion and $3.1 billion, respectively. (source: Pixel Union)

79% of all smartphone users have made a purchase on their smartphone in the last six months. (source: OuterBox)

40% of consumers will go to a competitor after a poor m-commerce experience. (source: OuterBox)

80% of shoppers used a mobile phone inside of a physical store to either look up product reviews, compare prices, or find alternative store locations. (source: OuterBox)

If a user has a negative experience with a brand’s mobile site, they are 62% less likely to purchase from that company in the future. (source: Think with Google)

Mobile load times can impact conversions by up to 20%. (source: Think with Google)

Source

By 2021, mobile ecommerce is predicted to reach $3.5 trillion. (source: Statista)

Source

But the mCommerce experience still leaves something to be desired—up to 90% of shoppers say their experiences with mobile commerce could be better. (source: Oberlo)

How to Improve Mobile Performance

M-commerce is one of the fastest-growing channels for retail commerce. This growth means that ecommerce retailers must prioritize mobile consumers.

Mobile-first ecommerce starts with addressing pain points around mobile shopping. Back in 2017, Comscore found that 20% of consumers cited security worries as their biggest barrier to buying on mobile. Retailers can go a long way towards allaying those worries through up-to-date technology:

Running your site on HTTPS rather than HTTP guarantees that consumer data stays safe.

Using a reputable ecommerce platform like Shopify or Magento means your ecommerce store is automatically PCI compliant, a guarantee that you’re handling credit card information in a secure environment.

Security isn’t the only way to optimize m-commerce, of course. Check out this post to learn seven steps for increasing mobile conversions.

Email and Social Media Marketing

Average revenue per abandoned cart email is $5.64, compared to only $0.02 for promotional emails and $0.18 per welcome email you send. (source: Sleeknote)

Abandoned cart emails have a 45% open rate. (source: Moosend)

One-third of online purchases begin on social platforms. (source: GeoMarketing)

55% of consumers made an online purchase after discovering the product on social media. (source: Shopify)

70% of consumers are more influenced by UGC content than branded content. (source: Trend.io)

Facebook’s ad revenue rose 25% in Q4 2019 to $20.7 billion. (source: Mobile Marketer)

71% of consumers don’t trust sponsored social media ads, and 69% don’t trust advertisements. (source: HubSpot)

Over 75% of consumers are inspired to purchase by images and video content. (source: GeoMarketing)

20% of consumers say it’s important to them that they can find and buy products directly from social media. (source: Bazaarvoice)

66% of Gen Z shoppers regularly use Instagram, compared with only 40% of millennials. (source: Accenture)

69% of Gen Z-ers are interested in purchasing directly through social media, and 37% have increased their use of social media specifically for purchase decision-making. (source: Accenture)

Source

CTR for transactional emails averages 4.8%. (source: IBM)

15.9% of clicked emails resulted in a purchase in 2019. (source: Barilliance)

Abandoned cart emails average conversion rates around 4.64%—sending multiple abandoned cart emails can help ecommerce brands secure 70% more orders. (source: SaleCycle)

Purchase decisions for 59% of respondents are influenced by marketing emails. (source: SaleCycle)

Email CTR can be improved by up to 35% with dynamic product recommendations. (source: Barilliance)

33.4% of email recipients open weekly emails, while the open rate drops with increased email frequency. (source: GetResponse)

60% of consumers prefer to get promotional messages by signing up for a brand’s email list. (source: OptinMonster)

How to Improve Email and Social Media Performance

As the stats show, social shopping is here to stay, especially among younger consumers. Ecommerce retailers that use social media to tell a strong brand story and create dynamic communities have a better chance of winning and keeping customers.

Start by finding out which network your highest Lifetime Value customers are using and strategize content specifically for that channel. For instance, if your target consumer is on Instagram, campaigns involving user-generated content may work well.

Find out more about how to engage customers through email and social media in this post.

Customer Support

67% of marketers and customer support professionals say their brands compete primarily on the basis of customer experience. (source: Gartner)

86% of buyers say they will pay more for a great customer experience. (source: SuperOffice)

51% of consumers trust companies that make it easy for customers to contact the company and their customer service reps. (source: Transaction)

82% of consumers defined an immediate response as “important” or “very important” when buying from a company, speaking with a salesperson, or asking a question about a product or service. (source: HubSpot)

59% of buyers expect a response within 30 minutes when they want to learn more about a business’s product or service. (source: HubSpot)

90% of customers rate an immediate response as important or very important when they have a support question. (source: HubSpot)

Almost half (49%) of consumers reported sharing an experience, good or bad, they had with a company on social media. (source: HubSpot)

30% of online consumers have posted product feedback online. (source: Transaction)

81% of consumers trust friends and family advice over businesses. (source: HubSpot)

80% of consumers have said they stopped doing business with a company because of poor customer service. (source: HubSpot)

75% of companies say they’ve seen a link between customer satisfaction, increased revenue and margin and reduced churn. (source: Gartner)

Source

70% of customers expect brands to understand how they use products and services and rank that understanding as “very important” to winning their business. (source: Salesforce)

75% of online shoppers prefer brands that personalize their shopping experience, and 74% are frustrated by irrelevant offers. (source: Trustpilot)

Millennials prefer live chat over every other channel when it comes to customer service and support. (source: Comm100)

How to Improve Customer Support Performance

Customer support can turn a one-time shopper into a repeat customer. To optimize support, start by making return policies and other frequently asked questions easy to find and understand. Having clear, accessible information on your site for consumers will reduce your ticket load and relieve consumer pain points.

If consumers do need to get in touch, provide a 24/7 live chat support service. If that’s too much of a strain on the purse strings, a chatbot can relieve some of the strain during closing hours and field level-one customer queries. Find out more about conversational chatbots for support from Intercom.

AI

By the end of this year (2020), it is estimated that about 50% of searches will be visual searches (like Syte) or voice search. (source: GeoMarketing)

By 2021, early adopter brands that redesign their websites to support visual and voice search will increase digital commerce revenue by 30%. (source: Gartner)

This year (2020), it’s predicted that 100 million consumers will shop in augmented reality (AR) online and in-store. (source: Gartner)

It is estimated that this year (2020), 80% of all customer-to-brand interactions will be with AI. (source: Apiumhub)

35% of consumers want to see more companies using chatbots. (source: ubisend)

47% of consumers would buy items from a chatbot. (source: HubSpot)

Voice-based shopping is expected to hit $40 billion within the next two to three years. (source: Quoracreative)

By 2022, consumer spending via voice assistants is predicted to hit 18%. (source: Quoracreative)

Globally, the voice-based smart speaker market may be worth up to $30 billion by 2024. (source: Quoracreative)

By 2021, more than half of companies will spend more on bots and chatbot creation annually than traditional mobile app development. (source: Gartner)

By the end of this year (2020), IoT technology will be in 95% of electronics for new product designs. (source: Gartner)

46% of retailers plan to launch either AR or VR solutions by the end of this year, primarily to meet CX requirements and demands. (source: Gartner)

The apparel and home decor industries are leading the charge in visual search. (source: Apiumhub)

Source

How to Improve AI Performance

AI might seem like something that only retailers with bottomless budgets can afford. But using off-the-shelf AI tools such as Syte can be an affordable way to introduce AI and machine learning into your ecommerce funnel.

Start by identifying where you want to leverage AI. For example, you could automate product recommendations based on purchase history or refine email campaigns based on interaction history. You could also introduce search features that use natural-language processing and machine learning.

Rather than building these features from scratch, rely on existing AI tools that integrate easily with your ecommerce platform, such as Shopify’s range of AI add-ons. These give you the technical backup you need and are relatively painless to implement at scale.

Using Ecommerce Statistics for Ecommerce Wins

Ecommerce stats can be powerful information levers when optimizing an online store. Benchmarking your brand’s current ecommerce performance against industry standards helps identify your priority areas for improvement as well as where you’re performing above average. Use the ecommerce stats in this guide to evaluate your own brand, and you’ll be on your way to stronger performance and higher retail revenues.