Your ecommerce business doesn’t exist in a vacuum—it’s a part of the global ecommerce ecosystem. That’s why you need to pay attention to the broader context in order to make the best decisions—and that means staying on top of the latest ecommerce statistics.

Ecommerce statistics: Amazon

• Amazon is the leading online retailer with net revenue of $232.88 billion in 2018. (Statista)
• Amazon has over 100 million Amazon Prime members. (Jeff Bezos in a letter to shareholders)
• Other sources estimate that there are over 95 million Amazon Prime members in the United States. (Statista)
• On average, two in five US consumers (41%) receive one to two packages from Amazon per week. That number jumps to half (50%) for consumers ages 18-25, and 57% for consumers ages 26-35. (Walker Sands)
• In the last six months, 83% of US consumers have made a purchase on Amazon. (BigCommerce)

Ecommerce statistics: Google Shopping

• The average amount of time between a Google product search and a purchase is 20 days (it’s 26 days on Amazon). (Jumpshot)
• 35% of Google product searches turn into transactions within 5 days. (Jumpshot)
• Google Shopping ad spend was up 43% YoY in Q4 of 2018, making the quarter the fastest growth rate in two years. (Merkle)
• Cross-device targeting yields 16% more conversions for retail advertisers in the US. (Google)
• Google Shopping ads have a higher CTR than Amazon’s Sponsored Product and Sponsored Brand ads. (Merkle)

Ecommerce statistics: Shipping & delivery

• 79% of US consumers said that free shipping would make them more likely to shop online. (Walker Sands)
• 54% of US consumers under the age 25 said that same-day shipping is their number one purchase driver. (Walker Sands)
• Only 15% of US consumers said that online retailers always offer shipping options that meet their expectations for speed of delivery, compared to 30% that report the same for Amazon. (Walker Sands)
• 83% of US online shoppers expect regular communication about their purchases. (Narvar)
• 53% of US online shoppers won’t purchase a product if they don’t know when it will arrive. (Narvar)

Ecommerce statistics: Returns

• 42% of US online shoppers have returned an item they bought online in the last six months. (Narvar)
• 63% of US online shoppers said that they would not make a purchase if they couldn’t find the return policy. (Narvar)
• Nearly 70% of US online shoppers said that their most recent return experience was “easy” or “very easy,” and 96% would buy from that retailer again based on that experience. (Narvar)
• 59% of US online shoppers said that they want to receive notifications about the status of their refund. (Narvar)
• 41% of US online shoppers said that they “bracket” at least some online purchases (“bracketing” refers to buying multiple versions of the same item, then returning those that didn’t work). (Narvar)

Ecommerce statistics: Cart abandonment

• The average global cart abandonment rate in Q3 of 2018 was 76.9%. (SaleCycle)
• 58.6% of US online shoppers have abandoned a cart within the last 3 months because “I was just browsing/not ready to buy.” (Baymard Institute)
• The top three reasons US online shoppers give for abandoning a cart during checkout are high extra costs, the need to create an account, and a complicated checkout process (these are the survey results after removing the “I was just browsing/not ready to buy” segment). (Baymard Institute)
• The average open rate for an abandoned cart email is 15.21%, and the average click-through rate is 21.12% for SmartrMail users. (SmartrMail)
• The average revenue per email for an abandoned cart email is $27.12 (for SmartrMail users). (SmartrMail)

Ecommerce statistics: Conversational commerce

• The top three messaging apps have user bases of 1 billion or more. (Business Insider)
• 61% of US consumers say that they have messaged a business in the last 3 months. (Facebook)
• 70% of the US consumers who message businesses expect a faster response than they would have gotten had they used a more traditional mode of communication. (Facebook)
• 69% of US consumers who message businesses say that being able to message a business helps them feel more confident about the brand. (Facebook)
• 29% of US online shoppers use or plan to use chatbots to shop online. (Narvar)

Ecommerce statistics: Instagram

• 83% of people say Instagram helps them discover new products and services. 81% say the platform helps them research products and services, and 80% say it helps them decide whether to make a purchase. (Facebook)
• Compared to non-users, Instagram users are 70% more likely to make online purchases on their mobile devices. (GlobalWebIndex)
• 44% of active Instagram users say they use social media to conduct brand research. That’s the highest percentage among the major social networks. (GlobalWebIndex)
• Engagement between users and brands on Instagram is 10 times greater than it is on Facebook, 54 times greater than it is on Pinterest, and 84 times greater than it is on Twitter. (Forrester)
• 96% of fashion brands based in the US use Instagram to reach consumers. (eMarketer)

Ecommerce statistics: Mobile devices

• Nearly 40% of all online purchases made during the 2018 holiday season were done on smartphones. (OuterBox)
• 80% of Americans are online shoppers. More than half of them have made purchases on mobile devices. (Pew Research Center)
• People who have a bad mobile experience with your business are 62% less likely to become your customer in the future. (Google)
• 69% of smartphone users say they’re more likely to buy from businesses with mobile sites or apps that answer their questions. (Google)
• 59% of smartphone users favor businesses with mobile sites or apps that enable them to make purchases easily and quickly. (Think with Google)

Ecommerce statistics: Conversion rates

The stats for this final section come from our brand new Shopping Benchmarks report—a deep dive into how ecommerce businesses from 16 different verticals are performing on Google Shopping and Bing Shopping.

• Across all verticals, the average Google Shopping conversion rate is 1.91% and the average Bing Shopping conversion rate is 1.74%.
• Although you can expect to convert Google shoppers at a higher rate, you’ll have to pay a premium for it. Whereas the average Google Shopping CPA is $38.87, the average Bing Shopping CPA is only $23.05.
• Ecommerce businesses in the Office & Business Needs vertical are killing it on Bing Shopping: they convert clicks into actions at an average rate of 15.19%.
• Turning to Google Shopping, HVAC businesses are killing it, too: They boast an average conversion rate of 3.30% and an average CPA of just $7.28.
• Advertisers in the Chemical & Industrial sector have one of the toughest jobs out there: less than 1% of their Google Shopping clicks convert into actions, and each conversion they do get costs $91.21 on average.