The Funnel

Online commerce is posting huge numbers as COVID-19 preventive measures ease.

Adobe published their latest Digital Economy Index last week and the data is encouraging for advertisers.

According to the report, consumers spent $82.5 billion purchasing goods online in May 2020, exceeding the 2019 holiday season by 7%.

Compared to the same month last year in May 2019, online spending was up by a staggering $52 billion.

The Adobe Analytics Digital Economy Index analyzed a trillion online transactions across 100 million product categories.

How does eCommerce stack up against traditional retail?

COVID-19 obviously has had a major affect, with online commerce reaching 12%-16% of overall retail spending, with a possibility that it will reach 20% if current trends hold.

How are people buying online?

Smartphones have long ago replaced desktop as the main device used to make purchases. According to Adobe, consumers purchased 10% more products through smartphones in May compared with January.

Also, certain consumer behavior that has developed in response to the pandemic may become permanent in the future. Many people have bought purchases online for the first time simply because they were forced to, and these people tend to use smartphones for such purchases.

Also, buying online and picking up in store has become the most popular way of purchasing items online, but because of lockdowns people are more open to have goods delivered to their homes. These habits will probably stick post-lockdown.

How are advertisers responding?

Amazon has announced up to $1 million in credit to small and medium-sized businesses through a partnership with Goldman Sachs.

Walmart has also announced a partnership with Shopify to provide SMB sellers access to Walmart’s 120 million monthly visitors through their marketplace. Shopify is expected to add 12,000 Shopify sellers this year.

Last month Facebook announced their latest push into eCommerce with Facebook Shops, designed to get as many businesses online without needing to create their own website. All that is required is a Facebook page.

Memorial Day sales saw online retailers surpass last year's record of $2 billion for the day, raking in $3.5 billion.

When it comes to inflation, the Adobe report looked at 18 categories of products, of which 13 experienced slight inflation. Three categories of products experienced deflation, but were high in terms of sales volume, meaning that overall digital consumer purchasing power remained even.

Nearly half of consumers that made a purchase online since March when the pandemic began has bought groceries. There was a slight decline in grocery deliveries in May as some states began opening up and people returned to brick-and-mortar stores.

The Big Picture

If we zoom out, we see that those businesses that are better able to combine their online and offline data with strong customer experience will be in the best position to outplay their competitors.

Getting online is tough however for those SMBs that have not done so until now though. It is likely these players will continue to struggle as consumers continue to buy more and more goods online and states remain in lockdown.

Try Aori

If you need a quick way to get online and take advantage of the increased eCommerce traffic set for June, July or the coming months, try out our smart advertising tools to get you a headstart with Google Ads, Microsoft Ads or Facebook Ads.