The new year has started, so now is the time to look back at the e-commerce year in 2022. How did sales develop, what consumer behavior was observed, which product groups improved in performance, and what conclusions can you draw for your online business in 2023? We will answer all these questions in this blog post.
According to Statista, estimated retail sales last year were just over $25 trillion, with ecommerce accounting for about $5.8 trillion. As you might expect, China had the largest ecommerce share of retail sales at 46.3% [1].
The effects of war and inflation are also being felt in ecommerce
Looking back at 2022, with the outbreak of war in Ukraine and significant increases in inflation, some issues have affected consumer behavior in ecommerce. Purchasing power has fallen, and at the same time, the cost of living has risen massively. In Germany, for example, this is particularly evident in the clothing and books segments, where sales have fallen by 12.8% in each case [2].
Although the Corona pandemic also caused significant sales losses in 2020 and 2021, it also brought good things: This is because the resulting change in shopping behavior continued in 2022, meaning that everyday goods such as pet supplies (+6.4%), medicines (+3.5%) and groceries (+1.3%) were purchased online in Germany more than ever before[3].
Health and beauty increasingly crucial for the US ecommerce market
Further, we have interesting data about the worldwide ecommerce revenue of the beauty care industry. So as you see, this segment was continuously increasing over the past years. The revenue of the global beauty care industry is forecast to continuously increase to 88.9 billion U.S. dollars within the next few years. Cosmetics is estimated to remain the biggest segment in the market with around 56.84 billion U.S. dollars in 2027. This is a segment worth exploring.
This trend is already observable in East Asia, where the Beauty & Personal Care segment accounts for 30% of total ecommerce sales[4].
As one of the first Shopware PaaS ecommerce Users, PhiAcademy migrated from Magento 2 to Shopware 6 within four months. Learn more about the international market leader in online B2B sales of beauty products.
Social shopping an essential pillar of sales
Running a solid shopping experience for customers is still your core mission. Note that the one-click checkout in m-commerce plays a significant role in this. Voice shopping will also become increasingly important in this context. According to eMarketer, around 33 million Americans already use voice recognition for shopping. When we talk about mobile shopping, we also have to think about social shopping. A strong influencer network, as well as attractive offers on channels like Instagram and Facebook, can form the perfect basis to drive this revenue pillar for your business. While global social commerce revenue was $475 billion in 2020, it increased to $724 billion last year.
2023: Statista forecasts strong revenue growth in ecommerce
The continuous growth trend in recent years is also expected to continue in ecommerce. For example, statista forecasts around $6.3 trillion in ecommerce sales for the coming year.
This forecast should give you further impetus to find sales growth in your own personal figures in 2023. We offer you the perfect basis for this with Shopware 6, our technologically advanced and secure platform, paired with an outstanding feature set.
Tip: With the new features from Shopware 6.4.19.0, selling digital goods is now also very easy! Whether tickets for events, travel, or digital products such as e-books, software, graphics, etc. – the offer in your online store can now be mapped quickly and intuitively. Learn more in the documentation about digital products.
We are excited about your success story and look forward to supporting you on your journey with powerful features!
[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1042763/worldwide-share-online-retail-penetration-by-country/
[2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/379046/worldwide-retail-ecommerceerce-sales/
[3] https://www.bevh.org/fileadmin/content/05_presse/Pressemitteilungen_2023/Umsatztabellen_2022_pdf.pdf
[4] https://www.asendia.de/asendia-insights/jahresrückblick-globale-entwicklungen-im-ecommerceerce-2022
