This week on Brandverge we wanted to share a webinar hosted by Comscore exploring the State of Digital Commerce. Comscore is an all-in-one solution for digital and social media, including box offices, CTV, and OTT, and has recently acquired Shareablee to bring in additional social data. In the webinar, Jason Clough, introduced the company's services and provided an update on digital commerce. He mentioned that 80% of the attendees on the call have purchased something online in the last 30 days, which he considers representative of the general internet population.
He then went on to explain the methodology of the report and pointed out that the data in the report is based only in the US and that retail commerce is defined as all retail categories excluding travel (using the same definitions as the Department of Commerce).
The main highlight of the webinar was the announcement that online retail has hit the milestone of one trillion dollars spent in 2022, with the highest quarter being Q4, which was expected due to the holiday season. This shows a change in consumer behavior and the shift of more dollars being spent online than ever before. The top five categories in digital spending are grocery, baby, furniture, computers, and consumer electronics, making up 62% of the total spending. They also note that there has been strong growth in e-commerce spending in every quarter of the year, with mobile being a significant contributor to that growth. Mobile spending has nearly doubled in a short period of time.
The webinar also mentions the shift in consumer behavior towards online shopping and the changing pattern of discovery of brands and products online. Regarding trends in ecommerce, specifically in the home and garden space, the shift in consumers spending more time at home due to working from home has contributed to growth in this category. They also highlight the growing importance of mobile devices in ecommerce. The data shows that mobile growth rate is double the desktop growth rate and that the mobile share of total digital dollars spent is increasing. This increase is due to improvements in the mobile buying experience, such as larger phone screens and seamless payment options. They also highlight the category of event tickets as an example of the shift towards mobile, as 88% of all digital dollars spent on event tickets are through mobile devices.
On the topic of online grocery shopping, there has been a 333% increase in online grocery shopping in just four years, with a big step change in Q2 2020 due to the pandemic and people moving their spending to online sources. Furthermore, there has been a shift towards mobile spending on grocery, with mobile spending reaching $29.8 billion in Q4 2022, up from $18.7 billion in the previous year. This growth is potentially due to a combination of people who have been using online grocery for a while buying more, and new users who tried it out during the pandemic and found it convenient. In addition, social media actions, such as likes, shares, and retweets, are being used as an indicator of consumer behavior and that this growth is being mirrored by the growth of digital commerce. The growth of Tiktok as a platform, particularly in the retail sector, is driven by factors such as discoverability, the role of influencers and publishers, and the increase in video consumption with price becoming an increasingly important factor for consumers.
In summary, the strength of online grocery and mobile commerce will be important to social media in retail, as it serves as a leading indicator for consumers' comparison shopping habits and final purchasing decisions.
