Online shopping has become a major player in the grand total of retail purchases. Online shops are often more efficient, easier to open and provide shipping all over the world (or the country). Whether for seasoned e-commerce entrepreneurs or for people who’ve just decided to enter the market, it is important to know the statistics of the market So, we at CouponBirds would like to share some numbers and considerations on the current affairs of the e-commerce market.
The Overall Condition of E-commerce
The US market has grown up 0.6% in a year and 1.7% in five years’ time. It is now the 8th in the world in total size after UK, China, Norway, Finland, South Korea, Denmark, and Germany. The total revenue of US online retail sales goes up to 2,489$ trillion, which is actually almost a third of the total retail market. It is a number that requires attention.
The main target audience includes people from 18 to 49. Among them at least 35% buy something online weekly. Less older people from 40 to 49 years of age tend to buy anything online. Only 23% use e-commerce shops weekly. Now if we look into the broader timeline we will see that the overall number of people who shop once a week is more even around the ages: between 31 and 41% from oldest to youngest.
Which Wares Were the Most Popular in 2018
Every year, people try to predict what kind of product will bring them the most money but since the year is a long time, those trends may not always be correct. Let’s look at what kind of products were popular in 2018. You will see whether you were right if you had made any predictions and if not. Well, there is always the fact that trends rarely change abruptly so you may still hop on the boat and get some revenue from the current trends.
1. Clothing and Shoes – 58%. Up to 58% people state that they’ve bought at least one item of clothing or footwear this year. This category has actually been sitting at the top of the list for a number of years. It’s understandable since buying clothing is easy, well-established industry and you can easily return the thing in case something goes wrong.
2. Electronics – 48% Electronics such as TV’s, computers, speakers, or headphones
3. Vitamins and supplements – 26%. Vitamins or supplements are usually a pain to purchase through mortar shops since you often can’t find everything you wanted and need to browse 2-3 shops until you’ve bought everything you want. People just don’t have that much time nowadays. So, such items are often bought online.
4. Pet food – 19%. Pet food is usually sold in gigantic bags that last for a couple of months. You can’t just stroll to the local shop and get them. So, it’s much easier to order it and ship it straight to your house. In addition to that, a lot of animals nowadays are allergic to different things so some of the supplies purchased are quite extravagant.
5. House items – 19%. Household items include washing powders, toilet paper, cleaning liquids, batteries and so on. Those things are usually purchased in a bulk for half a year or so and people usually use the same stuff over the years. So, its much more convenient just to order the things you need and pick them up from your porch rather than go to a special store for them.
6. Pills – 18% Pills are often purchased by people who have trouble moving about so they take their respective niche in E-commerce.
7. Long lasting food – 14%. A lot of people like to experiment with different ingredients such as bio-oil or gluten-free products. Those wares are often manufactured by smaller companies and their offices may be quite far from potential clients. So, people tend to buy long-lasting food as they fear that fresh meat or vegetables will go bad or will lose their freshness while they are delivered.
A considerably new trend of this season are subscription boxes. They are not very popular yet but their importance is growing rapidly. You can look at it by the number of google searches. It is really understandable. The consumption society wants to spend less time shopping and people are, after all, creatures of habit. We often purchase a product, find it tasty or its quality fine and afterward keep to that particular manufacturer. Retails have capitalized on this opportunity to get a lot of regular customers through subscription boxes.
The value of discounts and promotions
It seems that coupons and discounts are very important for US citizens. The majority of people state that discounts are either very important or simply important for them. You can see that more than 70% of people aged 18-59 think so and about 80% of respondents say that they have used a coupon at least once. Especially during different holiday seasons. For example, our website is currently experiencing a boom of visitors. People come for Christmas coupon and discount offers to buy presents for their loved ones and save at least some money after the holidays are done with.
