Global e-com sales 7% higher post 66% May pandemic spike

28 Sep '20

3 min read

Pic: Shutterstock

Following a 66 per cent spike in daily online sales in May, when most physical stores were shut and consumers at many places were still under strict lockdowns, data from a new study suggests e-commerce performance globally has levelled off, now averaging 7 per cent higher online sales daily and 3 per cent greater traffic than at the same time last year.

Among the lasting winners of the shift to e-commerce due to the pandemic is the home & garden vertical, which was averaging daily sales 42 per cent higher in early August compared with the early phase of the crisis in March, according to the study by Nosto, the commerce experience platform.

Fashion & accessories also remains buoyant, with sales 18 per cent higher in August than at the onset of the crisis and 10 per cent higher year over year (YoY). Beauty & skincare, on the other hand, has suffered a big climbdown with sales down by 20 per cent compared with March.

Its study, ‘The State of E-commerce Q3 2020’, analysed the performance of 500 online retail brands in the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, the Nordic countries and the Asia Pacific (APAC) across six key vertical sectors between March and August this year and in 2019.

Nosto’s data suggests that overall sales and traffic remained 7 per cent and 3 per cent higher YoY in August, which is unlikely to be enough to make up for the drastic drop in brick and mortar sales throughout the continuing pandemic affected period.

At present, the overall e-commerce conversion rate across all sectors is sticking at around 6 per cent higher YoY, which suggests that either shoppers are much more committed to making purchases when they visit online stores or that retailers are doing a better job at convincing them to buy, a press release from the company said.

At the same time, however, AOV across e-commerce is trending at just below last year’s numbers (between 0 and -3 per cent below 2019), most likely because people are being cautious and counting their pennies due to ongoing economic uncertainty.

Fashion & accessories e-commerce is seeing a lasting upside from the crisis with daily visits up by 15 per cent, daily sales up by 18 per cent, conversion rates up by 12 per cent in August compared with the start of the study on March 1 (the study covers a 140-day period between March 1 and August 1). YoY daily sales in the sector were 10 per cent higher in early August 2020 than they were at the same time last year.

Meanwhile, the AOV within fashion & accessories is down by 6 per cent from the start of the pandemic. Even though shoppers are browsing and buying clothes online more than before, they are not splurging or opting for the more expensive options.

Fibre2Fashion News Desk (DS)