Although statistics are not an exact science, it is a great combination of logic and mathematics that can help you make predictions. Statistics are merely numbers—facts that, if used correctly, can help you make wise business decisions.
In any business, statistics is a key component of decision-making.
For example, if you are selling 100 orders of lasagna in your restaurant per day, it just makes sense that you stock up on lasagna ingredients because you anticipate a large volume of orders for this food.
The same goes for e-commerce. If you know your numbers, you know how to make the right decisions.
With all the possible numbers out there, what statistical facts are meaningful?
Here, we will take you to the 17 most powerful statistics that will help you make a strategy, and make good decisions to drive more sales to your online business.
These statistics are from world-renowned companies like Statista, Kinsta, and Shopify.
Statistic 1: Growth of Digital Buyers from 2014 to 2021
By 2021, the estimated number of digital buyers is projected at 2.14 billion people. With 7 billion people around the world, that is more than 30% of the entire planet’s population who are going to buy online.
How this number helps you:
This tells you that more and more people are willing to engage in online transactions. And what it also means is that more and more people are going to use credit cards or other means of payment methods to process their digital transaction.
Since all these 2.14 billion people are not buying the same product, there is a guarantee that there will be someone out there who will buy a service or a product you are offering.
Key Actions:
- Market your products globally
- Offer several payment methods
Statistic 2: Conversion Rate as of QTR 4 of 2018
Here, we know that the conversion rate of shoppers is at 3.28% as of the last three months of the year 2018. Conversion rate is a number that represents how many people bought a product against the number of those who saw it.
For example, let us say that 100 people saw your product, and seven people bought it. Your conversion rate is 7%.
The 3.28% represents global conversion rates, which includes big names like Amazon, eBay, Alibaba, and so much more.
How this number helps you:
If there are only three people out of 100 who will buy, you now know that you need more eyeballs. If you show your products to 1,000 people, this means that only 30 people will buy because 3% of 1,000 is 30.
So, what this means is that you need to spend more on advertisement to reach more people’s eyes and ears.
And because you know that only 3% will buy, you must calculate your advertising costs and ensure that when 30 people buy, you make enough profit to cover the advertising costs, too.
Key Actions:
- Use targeted advertising
- Adjust your price to cover the advertising costs
Statistic 3: Amount of money spent globally in online shopping
As of 2018, the world spent 2.8 trillion dollars shopping online. By 2021, the estimated amount is 4.5 trillion dollars.
Now, what if you take only a fraction of that money like 0.01%? That is equal to $450,000,000 for you. While this may not sound realistic, it is possible. This is why there are companies that are at the top of the online retail food chain like Amazon and Alibaba.
They know how much money is spent and on what items.
How this number helps you:
If money is going to online sales, then there are people who are willing to spend. And if there is a demand, there must be someone who supplies for this demand.
Key Actions:
- Dig deeper where the money goes or what people are buying
- Start selling these products
Statistic 4: What are people buying per country?
Although many would think that the largest market for online sales is the United States, this is no correct. China is the biggest spender on online sales, followed by the US and the UK.
How this number helps you:
If you know which countries are buying specific products, you can market your goods to the right areas.
Key Actions:
- Look at the numbers and see what the demands are for each country
- Sell and ship your items to the countries that have a demand for your goods
Statistic 5: Preferred payment methods
The number one payment method used globally is a credit card. Trailing behind this is the digital payment system and debit card.
However, the numbers change as you move from one region to another. In China and India, direct debit is the second preferred method.
How this number helps you:
This tells you that you must offer the right payment system in the right countries.
Key Actions:
- Prepare a credit card payment system that accepts major credit cards
- Use several digital payment systems for your online store
- Add a different payment method per country to increase conversion
Statistic 6: Mobile users prefer mobile sites than apps
67% of people prefer going to mobile sites than apps. What does this mean? It means that many people do not want to download and install an app to be able to shop.
How this number helps you:
Since more people prefer mobile sites, perhaps you do not need to spend money on an app that people are not interested in using.
Key Actions:
- Focus your money and effort in making your website mobile-friendly
- Do not spend money on building an app
Statistic 7: Top reasons for abandonment
60% of people do not want to continue their purchase because of the high extra costs. What are these? Examples of added costs are shipping, handling fees, taxes, and others.
60% is a lot. And if your website has these added costs, then maybe you need to think of a strategy on how to remove these costs, and yet earn a profit.
How this number helps you:
If you know the top drivers for abandonment, you can create action plans to prevent your customer from having these experiences.
Key Actions:
- Remove extra costs from your prices
- Create a business process that will help customers avoid experiencing the reasons for abandonment
Statistic 8: Influencers to mobile shopping decisions
There is no huge difference between the thing that influences a shopper on both the tablet and smartphone platforms. But you can see that friends are the biggest influencers for shoppers to buy online.
How this number helps you:
It is not your advertisements that make customers buy from you. It is not Facebook, either.
Key Actions:
- Focus on customer service, fast shipping, and total customer satisfaction
- Reduce efforts on marketing and advertisements
Statistic 9: Online shopping frequency of customers
20% of online shoppers buy at least once a week, while 31% say that they shop at least once a month. If you analyze the graph, more than 70% of shoppers do their buying at least once a month.
How this number helps you:
There are products that people will buy only once every five years like furniture, and there are products that people will buy on a weekly or monthly basis.
Key Actions:
- Sell products that people need to use on a weekly or monthly basis
- Focus on food and clothing—things that people need weekly or monthly, and not on items that they will buy only once a year.
Statistic 10: The top products sold on Amazon
Amazon is one of the biggest online marketplaces in the world. Year on year, the site knows which products are getting more and more demand. As of 2017, luxury beauty products are selling more and more items, which has a sale of $400 million dollars.
How this number helps you:
This number shows you where the money is being spent, and this will tell you what products can earn you money.
Key Actions:
- Sell products that are on demand like make-up, whitening lotions, etc.
- Avoid selling niche-based products if you are only starting out in your online business adventure.
Statistic 11: Likelihood of paying on mobile per country
Each country has its own culture as far as money is concerned. There are countries like China and India, where more than 90% of online shoppers are likely to use mobile payments when shopping online. And then there are countries like Japan where it is not likely at all.
How this number helps you:
You can find out what kind of payment methods are preferred per country, and then offer the right payment solution.
Key Actions:
- Create different payment methods per country
- Make sure you advertise the right payment method per country to encourage people to make a purchase such as using cash on delivery, direct debit, etc.
Statistic 12: Average order value by traffic source
Direct navigation has the highest amount of money spent on online shipping. Direct navigation means that the customer went to your website directly, either by typing your URL on a browser or by seeing your advertisement somewhere.
With direct navigation, a customer is likely to spend $103 for an order.
How this number helps you:
Understand where site visits come from. You can see that email campaigns result in a sale of $101 per person.
Key Actions:
- Focus your marketing campaign on email since this is the second source of traffic that has the highest order value
- Spend less on social media ads as these do not offer a huge order value from customers
Statistic 13: Shopping overseas
Many people say that it is difficult to sell products overseas because shipping takes too long. But if you look at the statistics, this is not true.
57% of people are actually looking for and willing to shop from overseas online stores. By far, countries in Europe have the highest interest at 63.4%.
How this number helps you:
There are countries and regions where people find it alright to wait for shipping. Know these countries and sell to them from your own country.
Key Actions:
- Market your products to countries that have an interest t in shopping form overseas retailers
- Find the demands from these countries and sell similar products
Statistic 14: Do not just focus on the US
According to Shopify, sales from the Asia-Pacific region will account to 1.4 trillion dollars by 2023. This is close to the sales expected from Europe and America.
How this number helps you:
What this tells us is that the world has reached a point where we are now truly global. There are more than 200 countries in the world that you can sell to, and not just in the western countries where there is so much competition.
Key Actions:
- Understand what the demands are in Asia and start offering your products there
Statistic 15: Millennials prefer to live chat
Millennials are people who are born between 1980 and 2000. These are people who witnessed the change in technology. And because of that, they are used to getting things faster and on-demand.
Customer is one of these. Millennials prefer a live chat than making a call or talking to a chatbot.
How this number helps you:
You cannot help but sell to millennials. In the US alone, 80 million people are millennials. Now that you know, you will begin to understand that about 30% of your customers are millennials. They spend roughly $200 billion dollars per year.
Key Actions:
- You must have a live chat for your online store
- You must have a fast service that is accessible on different platforms like desktop and mobile
Statistic 16: The driving force of online shopping
60% of people who shop online say that the main reason they do it is convenience and that they can do it 24 hours a day.
They love shopping online because the online store is open no matter what the time is. The second reason is that they can compare prices against other online merchants, and the third is the prices are better.
How this number helps you:
Since you know what emotions are involved, you can use this knowledge to offer customers something that will fulfill these three demands.
Key Actions:
- Your online store must be open 24/7 where consumers will be able to checkout
- Add price comparisons between you and other major retailers to show the consumer that your prices are lower
- Lower your prices; you can do this by not having to pay rent for a brick-and-mortar store, or by building a dropshipping business instead of having inventory at home.
Statistic 17: Use PayPal
PayPal is the world’s biggest digital wallet used for processing, sending, and receiving payments. Statistics show that merchants with PayPal have 70% higher checkout rates than non-PayPal transactions.
How this number helps you:
PayPal is the world’s preferred payment method. Even if a person has a credit card, this person would rather type his credit card number in the PayPal system, and then use PayPal to process the payment. It is fast, secure, and known all throughout the world.
Key Actions:
- Make sure that you offer PayPal as one of your checkout options
Summary
There go the 17 statistics that can help you make wise business decisions. If you know how people are buying, what their preferred products are, how much they are spending, how they want to be serviced, and what methods they prefer to pay, you will be able to make adjustments to how you do your business.
An important thing about statistics is that you have to take action, and you need to mix and match these facts as they apply to your business.
For example, you cannot offer PayPal in a country where PayPal does not operate; you need to look at the next preferred payment method that is available in the country where you have to sell.
Numbers are your friend. And always remember, numbers do not lie.