E-Commerce Sales Hit $3.2 billion
By Anna Rose Welch, Editorial & Community Director, Advancing RNA
Third quarter e-commerce sales show continued growth, reveal importance of omni-channel efforts in retail businesses this holiday season, according to a comScore report
On Friday, November 8th, American Internet analytics company, comScore, released its estimates for Q3’13 desktop-based retail e-commerce sales. The company reported more evidence that e-commerce in retail continues to dominate, with sales for the quarter growing 13 percent year-over-year to $47.5 billion. This marks the 16th consecutive quarter of positive year-over-year growth, and the 12th consecutive quarter of double-digit growth.
In addition to desk-top spending, m-commerce spending via smartphones and tablets also showed a 26 percent surge to $5.8 billion, compared to Q3’12. Smartphones represented 62 percent of m-commerce sales compared to 38 percent on tablets. Overall, digital commerce spending totaled 53.2 billion in the third quarter, suggesting that many more retailers are recognizing the need to increase their digital channels to remain competitive. Indeed, some of the best performing on-line products were digital content and subscriptions, apparel and accessories, consumer packaged goods, consumer electronics, and jewelry/watches. Each of these categories grew 14 percent compared to a year ago, further representing the changing landscape of retail and customer preferences for an online shopping experience.
comScore chairman, Gian Fulgoni, does note that, despite evidence of increasing e-commerce, the environment is still challenging for retailers because of diminished consumer confidence and less overall discretionary spending during the quarter. Indeed, the 13 percent increase for Q3’13 came up short of the 16 percent increase reported in Q2’13.
Regardless of the decrease between quarters, Fulgoni remains optimistic saying, “Although there was evidence of slightly diminished consumer confidence in Q3, a more optimistic take is that increased outlays in large purchases such as new homes and automobiles may have temporarily squeezed other discretionary consumer spending.” Fulgoni’s claims are grounded in reality, considering that consumer-spending patterns were altered this fall because of appealing low interest rates on houses and cars. This diversion of expenses to larger ticket items left apparel and accessory retailers feeling the pinch.
However, Fulgoni considers these Q3’13 results a good indicator that online spending will remain strong throughout the remainder of the year. He says, “We are confident that the growth rate in online spending will once again far exceed that in brick-and-mortar stores, reflecting the ongoing channel shift to e-commerce.”
If anything, given the shortened holiday shopping season this year between Thanksgiving and Christmas, it is certainly safe to say that shoppers will continue turning online to get what they want, when they want it, with just the click of a mouse.
Click here to read ISR's 2013 OmniChannel Retailing Special Report: Solving The Omni-Channel Puzzle
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