It is no surprise that ecommerce is growing year-on-year, especially after the pandemic, and online sales account for more than one quarter of all retail sales in the UK. With UK consumers being more than familiar with online shopping, this can present challenges in owning an ecommerce store due to high expectations with user experience and the buying journey.
The pandemic caused a huge shift in buying habits, with 2020 being such an anomaly across ecommerce. There was a 61% growth recorded by the UK Ecommerce Association in the first lockdown in May 2020, meaning although it can seem that online sales fell by 9.1% in 2021, they still remain significantly higher than those in pre-pandemic 2019.
For businesses, this means in order to correctly and confidently measure your growth and look towards strategizing 2022, your 2021 figures should be compared to 2019, as opposed to 2020.
As we ease out of the pandemic and see a return to ‘normal’ life, you may expect ecommerce growth to slow down in 2022, however online sales will remain seriously higher than those in 2019, and your online business should be prepared to adjust for this. Keeping ahead of trends, how consumers shop and how they discover an ecommerce store is key to delivering a successful ecommerce strategy for 2022.
Google is looking to block third-party cookies in Chrome in 2023, meaning that 2022 is the year of data – and data is essential for understanding consumers and their behaviours online. Ecommerce sites should be looking to create an exchange that the consumer sees as a good deal, giving something worthwhile in return for their data.
As you are likely aware, there is an ever-increasing number of ecommerce platforms to host your online store, and according to Nosto the most common are WooCommerce (2.8m live websites) and Shopify (1.4m live websites) followed by Squarespace (861.4k) and OpenCart (408.1k). While these platforms can make it easier to manage ecommerce functions such as order fulfilment and stock management, they are not a solve-all for consumer management, as in the 2020 festive period less than a third of consumers said that every online shopping experience went well. Optimising these ecommerce sites ahead of the impending surge of online shopping is essential.
See our list of services and how we can elevate your online presence and ecommerce websites here.