Online retail sees continued growth with digital commerce up 14% YoY [Report]

Tracking the online behavior of 500 million global shoppers, Salesforce Commerce Cloud’s Q2 2017 shopping index spotlights the various ways digital commerce is continuing to grow.

From shopper spend to mobile site traffic and social traffic, the report shows increases across the board during Q2 of this year. Specifically, digital commerce was up 14 percent year over year, retail website traffic was up 6 percent, and online shopper spend was up 8 percent.

The mobile traffic share for digital commerce saw a 23 percent year-over-year increase last quarter, rising to 57 percent. Social traffic share grew 42 percent year over year, driving a large portion of the mobile traffic growth.

Among the shopping verticals tracked by Salesforce, active apparel saw the biggest increase — nearly double the overall growth. The only vertical that saw a drop was luxury apparel.

Q2 2017 Digital Commerce Growth by Vertical

“Buying Intent continues to tick up, and is about to breach its all-time high — even including peak holiday shopping levels,” says Rick Kenney, the head of consumer insights for Salesforce Commerce Cloud in a company blog post covering the index, “Overall, nearly 20 percent of visitors are either buying or showing clear signs of buying behavior, like searching, adding products to a cart, and starting checkouts.”

While 59 percent of the consumers say they have used their phone while shopping in a store during the last three months according to Salesforce, desktops continue to own the largest share of online orders at 55 percent.

Q2 2017 online order share by device

Salesforce also found that 29 percent of online revenue for retailers could be attached to visitors who had searched for products while on their site, but only 12 percent of visits involve engagement with the search feature.

Overall, the search usage and revenue numbers have remained relatively flat going back to Q2 2015.

Q2 2107 search usage and revenue

“The digital heavyweights — Amazon and Google — are conditioning consumers to search. Site search is an absolutely crucial utility for your shoppers,” writes Kenney in the Salesforce Commerce Cloud blog post.

He believes retailers and brands should be investing in three specific areas to enhance the online shopping experience: findability, personalization and brand connection.

You can find the full report at: Salesforce Commerce Cloud’s Q2 2017 Shopping Index.

About The Author

Amy Gesenhues

Amy Gesenhues is Third Door Media’s General Assignment Reporter, covering the latest news and updates for Marketing Land and Search Engine Land. From 2009 to 2012, she was an award-winning syndicated columnist for a number of daily newspapers from New York to Texas. With more than ten years of marketing management experience, she has contributed to a variety of traditional and online publications, including MarketingProfs.com, SoftwareCEO.com, and Sales and Marketing Management Magazine. Read more of Amy’s articles.