Abercrombie & Fitch Co. (No. 60)

Abercrombie net sales were up 3% year over year to $836 million. The retailer did not break out ecommerce sales. 

“On digital engagement, our team has leveraged social media platforms to showcase our lifestyle offering, where we are able to highlight key must-win products for us in an authentic way. Social has proven to be a great channel for our target millennial customer,” CEO Fran Horowitz told investors.

American Eagle Outfitters Inc. (No. 55)

American Eagle ecommerce revenue was down 4% year over year in the first quarter, while in store revenue was up 5%. Overall revenue grew 2%, the retailer reported.

“Customers returned to in-person shopping and demand continued to normalize from elevated builds during the pandemic,” chief operating officer Michael Rempel told investors in a call. Leaders at American Eagle are working on strategies to use analytics to increase engagement, traffic, and conversion, Rempel said.

Bath & Body Works Inc. (No. 57)

The health and beauty retailer finished expanding its BOPIS rollout across the U.S. in Q1, CEO and director Gina Boswell told investors on May 18. Bath & Body Works plans to increasingly connect its digital and in-store offerings, Boswell said, because customers who shop through both channels spend three times more than customers who only use one. As of May 18, just 15% of customers shop through both channels, she said.

Boot Barn Holdings, Inc. (No. 328)

Ecommerce sales were down 18.4% in Boot Barn’s fourth quarter. “We believe these declines are a result of competitors having a stronger in-stock position compared to last year and expect this softness will be transitory,” CEO and president Jim Conroy told investors.

“While our online business declined, that business is cycling two very strong years of 39% and 24% comp growth in fiscal 2022 and fiscal 2021, respectively. Given the extraordinary revenue increase last year, we are quite pleased with these results,” Conroy said. Retail same store sales declined just 3.3% over the same period.

BJ’s Wholesale (No. 69)

BJ’s Wholesale said that digitally enabled comparable sales were up 19% year over year for the quarter ended April 29 ,2023. Online sales made up 10% of total sales in the quarter, CEO and president Bob Eddy told investors. Members of the warehouse club who shop online spend 70% more than members who only shop in stores, Eddy said.

Canada Goose (No. 135)

The winter wear retailer grew revenue 31.4% year over year in its fiscal Q4, but growth was partially offset by lower ecommerce results, per CEO and chairman Dani Reiss. Canada Goose didn’t share specific ecommerce figures.

The retailer shared plans to “further enhance store productivity and e-commerce performance in the not-so-distant future,” without stating details.

The Children’s Place (No. 124)

Digital sales growth at The Children’s Place “significantly outperformed” in-store sales for the first quarter, CEO and president Jane Elfers said in a statement. 

Online purchases made up 46% of sales in the quarter, compared to 45% in the previous year’s Q1 and just 33% in 2019. Elfers said ecommerce is projected to be 30% of sales by 2025, representing over $1 billion. 

Web traffic was “up double digits,” and 56% of new customer acquisition came through ecommerce, the retailer said. 

“Our millennial moms’ clear preference for the ease and convenience of shopping for her kids online is here to stay,” Elfers told investors.

Dick’s Sporting Goods (No. 32)

The sports retailer didn’t share specific ecommerce figures, but president and CEO Lauren Hobart told investors that “our digital experience remains an integral part of our success,” in a Q1 earnings call. 

Dick’s acquired outdoor retailer Moosejaw in March. Moosejaw primarily operates online, averaging 3 million visitors per month.

“For just over 10 months in 2023, we expect Moosejaw will add approximately $100 million in net sales,” chief financial officer Navdeep Gupta told investors.

e.l.f. Cosmetics Inc. (No. 953)

Beauty retailer e.l.f. grew net sales by 78% in its fiscal fourth quarter, “primarily driven by strength across our retailer and e-commerce channels,” it said in a statement.

E.l.f. began as an exclusively online brand before expanding into stores. Consumption of the brand’s digital content was up 75% in fiscal 2023, CEO Tarang Amin told investors. The retailer’s beauty squad loyalty program grew to 3.7 million members in the quarter, up 25% year over year. Loyalty members were behind nearly 80% of ecommerce sales, along with higher AOV and more frequent purchases than non-members, Amin assid.

Foot Locker, Inc. (No. 52)

Foot Locker reported that comparable digital sales in Q1 were down 16.8% year over year. The footwear retailer also discontinued an ecommerce line called East Bay, and online sales were down 9.5% excluding the brand. That’s still a larger decrease than in store comparable sales, which were down 7.4%. 

Online sales made up 16.3% of sales in the quarter, down from 18% in Q1 2022. Ecommerce sales are starting to pick up, with April sales up year over year, CEO Mary Dillon said. The retailer is on track to reach its goal of 25% online sales by 2026, Dillon said.

Guess Inc. (No. 177)

Online sales at Guess grew in Q1, although more slowly than in store sales, CEO Carlos Alberini said. 

Total revenue was down 4% in the quarter to $570 million, with U.S. revenue declines offsetting growth in Asia and Europe.

Kohl’s Corp. (No. 23)

Digital sales were down 19.6% year over year in Q1, Kohl’s reported. Net sales were down just 3.3%. 

“Our customers continue to shift back towards stores, and we reduced online-only promotions as we work to simplify our value strategies,” CEO Tom Kingsbury told investors.

Online sales made up just over one-quarter of sales for the quarter at 26%.

Ralph Lauren Corp. (No. 75)

Ralph Lauren’s digital sales were up in fiscal 2023, the retailer said. ”Sales in our owned Ralph Lauren digital sites grew mid-single digits on top of 20% growth last year,” chief financial officer and chief operating officer Jane Nielsen told investors in a Q4 earnings call.

“We plan to enhance the user experience with rich digital content and even greater customer personalization in fiscal ’24,” Nielsen said. That includes using generative AI for copy editing, computer programming, and graphics in addition to inventory optimization and forecasting.

Urban Outfitters (No. 30)

Apparel retailer Urban Outfitters reported comparable sales grew by double digits both in stores and online for its Anthropologie, Free People, and FP Movement brands. The Urban Outfitters brand’s comparable sales were down, and overall comparable sales were up 5%, the retailer said. 

“The growth in Retail segment comp sales was driven by a high single-digit digital comp and a low single-digit positive store comp,” co-president and chief operating officer Frank Conforti told investors. 

Online rental and resale marketplace Nuuly revenue grew 125% year over year, ending the quarter with 167,000 subscribers. 

Williams Sonoma Inc. (No. 22)

Revenue decreased 6% year over year in Q1, but was up 3.5% over 2021. The retailer did not specify ecommerce revenue. 

Williams Sonoma plans to “optimize our digital spend and customer connections,” per CEO Laura Albner.

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The marketplace, Volition, will use the newly raised investment money from Newark Venture Partners and Quiet Capital, with participation from Lachy Groom, Alan Rutledge, Julian Capital, and Humba (Susa) Ventures, to continue expand operations, the company says.

Volition B2B marketplace

Nick Pinkston, CEO, Volition

“Volition is the first marketplace for the $2 trillion industrial components industry that helps engineering and purchasing teams find and buy all of the parts they need to prototype and manufacture their designs,” says CEO and co-founder Nick Pinkston.

The industrial parts market is highly fragmented, with over 500,000 unique suppliers that can be difficult to discover, the company says.

“Prior to Volition’s arrival, there was no way to easily search across all suppliers,” the Volition B2B marketplace says. “Most suppliers are new to ecommerce. And the majority do not currently provide customers a way to search for or purchase their products online, meaning customers must search through a patchwork of options to find what they need.”

Volition says its core B2B marketplace technology directly integrates with suppliers’ databases to maintain updated information and creates automated systems that quickly search and filter parts by exact product specifications, the marketplace says.

The Volition B2B marketplace, on the web at GoVolition.com, is based in San Francisco.

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Namely, small businesses. More than 60% of the businesses that sell on Amazon are small and independent, Amazon says in a new report. Collectively, those businesses in 2022 sold more than 4.1 billion products — or an average of 7,800 products every minute — Amazon says.

Sales per small business store on Amazon averaged about $230,000 per store, according to Amazon’s new report, 2022 Small Business Empowerment.

Dharmesh Mehta, vice president, worldwide selling partner services, Amazon.com Inc.

“Selling in Amazon’s store has enabled independent sellers to employ an estimated 1.5 million people in the U.S.,” says Dharmesh Mehta, vice president of Amazon’s worldwide selling partner services. “And during the 2022 holiday season alone, Amazon customers purchased nearly half a billion products from small businesses in the U.S., leveraging Amazon’s significant investments in customer traffic, a trusted shopping experience and fulfillment and logistics capabilities that enable fast and convenient delivery.”

Amazon small business metrics

• In 2022, Amazon and its third-party lending partners lent $2.1 billion to independent sellers.
• The top small business categories include health and personal care, home, beauty, grocery, and apparel,
• The states with the most independent sellers are California, Florida, New York, Texas, and New Jersey.
• The fastest growing are Alaska, Washington, D.C., Mississippi, Maine, and Wyoming.

“While small businesses continue to thrive by selling in Amazon’s store, running a small business has never been straightforward,” Amazon says. “And this past year brought new challenges that businesses of all sizes had to navigate. The economy saw rising interest rates and inflation not seen in nearly 40 years. And many businesses continued to face supply chain issues because of the global pandemic and its aftereffects.”

Amazon.com Inc. is No. 1 in the Top 1000. The database is Digital Commerce 360’s ranking of North American web merchants by sales. It is No. 3 in the Online Marketplaces database, which ranks the 100 largest global marketplaces.

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Total U.S. web traffic from Feb.-April 2023 was -5.3% for Home Depot, -8.9% for Lowe’s, and -13.1% for Overstock, according to Similarweb estimates.

Home Depot (ranked No. 4 in the 2023 Digital Commerce 360 Top 1000 database) had the best conversion rate (3.3%) among home improvement merchants, which include Lowe’s (No. 12), Overstock.com (No. 50), Wayfair Inc. (No 10), Ikea, and Ace Hardware Corp. (No. 662). That’s down half a point from 3.8% a year prior and 3.8% in the quarter ended Jan. 31. Ikea ranks No. 3 in the Digital Commerce 360 Europe database.

When compared to earnings results for Q1, only Lowe’s reported an increase in online sales (6%) for the three-month period ended May 5.

Home Depot online sales for fiscal Q1 ended April 30 fell 2.9%. While Overstock.com reported that online sales were down 29% in its fiscal Q1 ended March 31. Wayfair reported revenue decreased 7.3%, active customers decreased 14.6% and orders were down 6.7% for its fiscal Q1 ended March 31. 

Home Depot led the pack in web traffic 

With more than 521 million visits to its website in Q1 2023, Home Depot outpaced Lowe’s 321 million visits and 303 million visits to Wayfair.com, according to Similarweb estimates of desktop and mobile web visits from Feb.-April 2023.

Ikea has the most web visits that lead to conversion

Ikea’s converted web visits grew 0.3%, the only merchant to grow in this category. Wayfair’s conversion rate decreased 0.1%, followed by Ace Hardware (-0.2%), Lowe’s (-0.3%), Home Depot (-0.5%) and Overstock (-0.6%). 

Lowe’s lost the most web traffic share but gained online sales in Q1

It may be quality of time, not quantity of time, when it comes to web traffic visits. Lowe’s web traffic declined in Q1 but online sales increased 6% — an anomaly among competitors whose ecommerce sales declined.

Bounce rates were down for Lowe’s but up for Home Depot, according to Similarweb estimates. Lowe’s bounce rate decreased 2.77% in April 2023 year over year. 

“This could reflect a better ecommerce experience for website visitors,” says David Carr, senior insights manager. Over the last few years, Lowe’s has invested in upgrading its 15-year-old legacy software system. 

Online sales increased 6%, representing more than a 10% sales penetration. Lowe’s will continue to focus on upgrading its B2B Pro digital experience with new tools and personalization, said Marvin Ellison, chairman, president and CEO, during the retailer’s May 23 earnings call. Ellison attributed online growth to an increase in its pro sales. Lowe’s pro customers are contractors, repair remodelers, tradesmen, as well as property management and facility management professionals, according to the merchant.

“We also continue to enhance our DIY online experience by making home improvement projects easier for consumers to visualize, estimate and shop,” Ellison told investors. “These investments are paying off with higher online convergence and attachment rates.”

Consumers are also spending less time per website visit, according to Similarweb’s estimates. The average minutes per visit, desktop and mobile web, worldwide, is on the decline. 

In April 2023, the time spent decreased year over year:

Ace Hardware gains the most web traffic in Q1

Smaller merchant Ace Hardware’s desktop web traffic grew 22.4%, according to Similarweb estimates of desktop and mobile web visits from Feb.-April 2023. That’s in line with Ace Hardware’s Q1 2023 (ended April 1) report of a 22% increase in online visits. The merchant reported that online revenue increased 11% compared with the year prior.

Wayfair web traffic also increased 3.1%.

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Chewy ranks No. 13 in the Top 1000. The database is Digital Commerce 360’s ranking of the largest online retailers by web sales.

Customers requested health care from Chewy

Chewy primarily focuses on food and supplies in the $130 billion pet industry, but about one-third of that market is health spending, president of Chewy Health Mita Malhotra said. In 2022, Chewy had 20.4 million active customers, the retailer  said.

Before the pharmacy launch, Chewy heard feedback from customers that they wanted to buy medical supplies from the company. 

“We buy everything else from you … why don’t you carry medical? Why don’t you sell pharmaceuticals?” customers asked Chewy, per Malhotra. 

Chewy first ventured into health care as a pharmacy because it made sense with the existing ecommerce platform, Malhotra told Digital Commerce 360. The biggest opportunity was in medications for “chronic conditions and preventative care,” she said. They make up about 70% of medications Chewy sells.

Consumers showed a preference for buying those products, with examples like insulin and prescription food, as subscriptions. The strategy was a massive success, and autoship orders made up 73% of sales in the most recent fiscal quarter, accounting for $1.98 billion of revenue.

However, fewer than 5% of Chewy customers buy all their pet health care products from the ecommerce retailer, CNBC reported. The retailer hopes to make health care 30% of its business in the near future.

Building trust

Consumers’ willingness to pay for their pets’ health care has been profitable for Chewy, but it first had to convince them it was a trustworthy provider.

“Trust is rooted in how you really take care of customers. Are you listening to them? Are you taking care of them?” Malhotra said.

For Chewy, that’s an outgrowth of the retailer’s customer service, which has made headlines for how it treats pet owners in difficult times. Some customers told Entrepreneur in 2022 about receiving flowers, sympathy cards, and even portraits when their pets died.

Customer service representatives have leeway to have these interactions with customers, Malhotra said. Currently only about 20% of Chewy customers are buying pharmaceuticals, but she believes the number will grow thanks to the emphasis on customer service. Chewy declined to share specific statistics around its pharmaceutical sales. 

Pet health is resilient

The pet category is “resilient,” even in times of economic downturns, Malhotra said, and that’s even more true of pet health care. She cited a 2021 Metlife study of 2,000 dog and cat owners, which found that 58% said they worried more about their pets’ health than their own. 52% of respondents also said they spend more money on their pets’ health care each year than on their own. 

Malhotra said this trend is clear in Chewy’s sales.

“Food, pharmacy, wellness regiments: People are not pulling back on spending,” she said. Those categories are “durable,” while consumers might pull back on more discretionary items like toys if they have less to spend.

Better medical care and nutrition are also helping pets live longer. This leads to further spending on pet health care, and increasingly expensive care as they age, according to a report from Bloomberg Intelligence.

“We’re seeing a profound increase in consumer spending on pets and expect to see this continue through 2030,” co-author of the Bloomberg report Diana Rosero-Pena said. “Consumers are willing to pay more for items for their pets, with the pet food market having the potential to grow more than 50% from current levels by the end of the decade.”

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But a new survey shows that many small businesses face obstacles on the path to achieving sustainability. Meanwhile, another research report shows that left unchanged, the ongoing environmental impact from last-mile ecommerce deliveries will be harmful.

Sustainable ecommerce fulfillment comes at a cost many won’t pay

Delivery and logistics services provider DHL conducted a survey of 2,500 small and medium-sized businesses. It finds that 95% of companies say sustainability is important to their business. And almost half (48%) believe it’s extremely important. But when asked about the biggest challenge to achieving sustainable goals, 42% said the overall investment is the main obstacle. 11% said they had no clue where to start.

Sustainability is important to almost every respondent, DHL says. But “nearly half (47%) are willing to invest only 1%-3% of their operating budget into sustainability practices,” according to the DHL survey. “And 26% are not willing to invest anything” into sustainable ecommerce fulfillment.

If left unchanged, the environmental impact of the rising number of ecommerce deliveries globally will also cause more air pollution and human health issues.

A new report by Clean Mobility Collective and Stand.earth Research Group claims ecommerce and the associated emissions from last-mile delivery will continue growing exponentially. The report predicts global annual parcel volume could increase from over 315 billion parcels in 2022 to up to 800 billion parcels a year in 2030.

Without any greener changes to how these parcels are packaged and delivered, global ecommerce deliveries will emit up to 160 megatons of carbon dioxide per year by 2030, according to the report. That’s equivalent to yearly CO2 emissions of up to 44 coal plants.

“Approximately 1 billion trees would need to be planted and allowed to grow for 10 years to sequester the emissions of a single year of current last-mile parcel deliveries,” the report says.

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• Product Design and Generation
• Customer Experience Personalization
• Virtual Try-On and Augmented Reality (AR)
• Automation of Content Generation
• Visual Search and Product Discovery
• Interactive Chatbots, Customer Support and Virtual Assistants
• Demand Forecasting and Inventory Management:
• Fraud Detection and Security
• Dynamic Pricing to Maximize Revenues

Sponsored by:

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More than half (52%) of respondents said they prefer that a retailer personalize the shopping experience for groups of similar customers. 48% said they preferred that a retailer personalize the shopping experience to each individual.

Most customers (58%) said they believe data sharing is necessary for brands to provide a personalized experience. 87% of respondents want to be asked for their permission to collect personal data first. Only 13% said it was not important to them to be asked.

A significant portion (42%) of respondents said they do not believe sharing their personal information, whether intentionally or without permission, is necessary for a retailer to personalize their shopping experience.

CI&T, a software and digital consultancy company, surveyed 542 U.S. consumers in March 2023. Respondents were selected to be representative of the demographics of the U.S. population.

Consumers don’t want to share much information about themselves

Consumers are reluctant to share information beyond:

• Gender: 14%
• What city they live in: 14%
• How much they are willing to spend on an item: 11%
• Age: 11%
• Who they are shopping for: 10%

Only 8% said they’d be OK with a retailer knowing their shopping history at the retailer’s physical store, or their browsing history on the retailer’s digital channels such as a mobile app or website (7%).

Topping the list of what information consumers do not want retailers to know:

• Annual household income: 19%
• How large the household is: 12%
• Browsing history at this retailer’s physical stores: 11%
• Race: 11%

Consumers are more likely to share information related to what products they want to buy. When asked which of the following consumers wish retailers knew about them when shopping with the retailer:

• The sizes I usually fit in best: 17%
• The styles I prefer to wear: 16%
• The price point that is most aligned with how I spend: 15%
• What I’ve bought from them in the past: 13%
• The color scheme/schemes I prefer: 11%

According to survey author Melissa Minkow, director, retail strategy, “while there is sufficient demand for personalization, achieving it in the most-privacy-respecting way possible is imperative,” she wrote in the report.

While survey respondents said they wanted personalization geared toward similar groups of consumers rather than individual shoppers, 22% said they would share personal information in exchange for a product type, color or style developed just for them with the exact specifications they’d want. 21% said a search process that is quick and oriented to precisely what they are looking for would be an incentive to share data. And 20% cited a personalized price point.

“Consumers will gladly welcome ‘good’ prices,” Minkow said in the report.

Consumers want options

Respondents also said they do not want to miss out on options should they opt for a personalized shopping experience. 47% said they’d like to see the “same web page everyone sees, and then allow me to navigate to the type of item I’m looking for after I select a few filters,” such as price or color.

Only 15% said they’d want to see a retailer’s homepage with personalized options.

Categories that consumers said they would prefer to have a personalized experience:

• Apparel and accessories: 17%
• Personal care (body wash, razors, hair brushes): 13%
• Beauty (cosmetics): 12%
• Electronics: 12%
• Grocery: 12%

Human interaction vs. chatbot

Overall, consumers slightly preferred interacting with humans over artificial intelligence when it came to:

• Apparel/accessories: Fit and sizing experience.
• Electronics: Differences between brands.
• Grocery: Recipes and brands, or finding the least expensive ingredients.

Categories where consumers were comfortable interacting with a chatbot as much or nearly as much as a human:

• Household goods: Explanations of chemicals used in manufacturing.
• Furniture and appliances: Interior design consultations.
• Personal care consultations: Ingredient explanations and suggestions.
• Beauty consultations: Color match appointments for foundation and concealers recommendations, or makeup lessons.
• Pet supply consultants: Suggesting the right food or toys.

What retailers can do to entice shoppers to share information

Retailers can incentivize providing data by building exclusive content, creating limited product ranges, offering unique services, and launching early drops for shoppers who share more personal information, Minkow said.

“Right now, the best examples I’ve seen are Nike and Levi’s,” she said. Levi’s Red Tab loyalty program prompts shoppers to answer a few questions for Levi’s to suggest relevant products.

Levi’s engages with consumers through its Red Tab loyalty program by asking questions to tailor the shopping experience.

“The more consumers engage with these brands by giving up more information about them through their loyalty programs [as well as outside loyalty programs], the more tailored and interactive the shopping experience,” Minkow said.

Consumers want options. Minkow warns retailers to be careful not to suggest that the customer bypass certain products “because consumers seem to worry that personalization may lead to shortcuts that omit products they would want to see,” she said.

Instead, when asking for data, retailers could explain the benefits such as “this will allow us to show you more items you might be interested in.”

Or, for omnichannel shoppers interested in buy online, pick up in store (BOPIS), “if you’re solely open to picking up in store today, sharing your location with us will ensure we only show you items in stock at the stores within the amount of miles from you that you’ll accept.”

Using AI to personalize the shopping experience

Survey respondents are open to interacting with AI chat bots. Minkow said pricing models offering personalized discounts are another example of how technology can power the type of personalization consumers want.

“Sizing suggestions and styling recommendations leverage technology to facilitate personalization as well,” she said.

She warns that once a problem arises that cannot be easily resolved by a chatbot, the conversation should be handed to a customer service agent immediately.

“Too much friction can be created when a problem is handled by technology for longer than it should be, which would result in an abandoned shopping cart and/or not returning post-purchase to the retailer,” she said. “There should be an automatic threshold wherein if a customer has been interacting with technology for a certain amount of time, a service agent is automatically triggered to step in.”

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And whereas UrbanStems typically sells five times more than a usual week in the week leading up to Valentine’s Day, it sells 10 times more than a usual week leading up to Mother’s Day, she said. Moreover, conversion for UrbanStems Mother’s Day sales increased nearly 50% compared with the retailer’s average conversion, she said, without revealing specific figures.

The UrbanStems homepage, captured Friday, May 12, shows a Mother’s Day promotion of up to 30% off for double bouquets.

UrbanStems Mother’s Day sales

The retailer had its best revenue day ever on May 11, the Thursday leading up to Mother’s Day, Hudson said, without revealing a dollar amount. That coincided with its highest site traffic on the same day. Hudson said the retailer has yet to determine if this was its best Mother’s Day period to date, “but most likely. We are still figuring this out due to refunds and redeliveries.”

UrbanStems site traffic in the week leading up to Mother’s Day increased more than 400% compared with non-holiday weeks. Its average order value also increased more than $10 during the sales period.

“Typically we’ll see a spike,” Hudson said. At least for Mother’s Day, people are more likely to do gift sets, which are more expensive with us, or to do add-ons.”

That led Hudson and her team to do A/B tests to determine whether offering add-ons at checkout boosted AOV. She said the retailer did not see a difference in having add-ons appear during checkout, so going into Mother’s Day, it removed the add-on upsell opportunity to improve site speed.

“What we found was that when the add-ons were being shown in checkout, it would cause the site to load a little slower because it was having to call to see what add-ons were in inventory,” Hudson said. “So we removed that, and even then, some people were choosing add-ons before they got to checkout.”

A/B testing

The overall boost in site traffic made Hudson realize she could squeeze in some last-minute testing to optimize landing pages.

“So many people were coming to the site that we could get a result we knew we were 100% confident in — in half the time we normally would,” Hudson said.

On May 11, just three days before Mother’s Day, UrbanStems tested versions of its landing pages from social media with and without customer reviews. But when the retailer removed reviews, it saw conversions decrease 25%, Hudson said.

From there, Hudson said, UrbanStems better understood how much its customers care about reviews.

“They want to see how the actual product arrives,” she said.

Optimizing social media and digital marketing with APIs

UrbanStems also runs design feature experiments using web design vendor Zmags’ Fastr Frontend interface, which connects to the platform via an application programming interface (API).

About 10% of sales during the period came from Zmags custom pages for podcasters and influencers UrbanStems worked with. Those pages averaged an 8% conversion rate, Hudson said.

Hudson said UrbanStems also tested its paid landing page made using Zmags against the Mother’s Day product landing page, which runs on the retailer’s Shopify-powered ecommerce site.

“With that, we saw a 200% lift in conversion when we drove people to the Zmags experience versus just our normal PLP when they’re coming through paid social. We’re constantly testing,” Hudson said. “The conversion rate numbers that week of Mother’s Day in general were insane and not the norm, but we were able to keep testing and getting it better and better.”

The UrbanStems Mother’s Day product landing page on May 12 shows how soon shoppers can receive bouquets.

The UrbanStems Mother’s Day product landing page on May 12 shows discounts, overnight shipping options and an out-of-stock bouquet.

Countdown timers

UrbanStems also used Zmags to include countdown timers across its site, including on product landing pages, even before Mother’s Day. The retailer worked with Zmags to automate the timers to count down to 2 p.m. Eastern Standard Time in cities where it offers same-day delivery, then automatically update each day to count down again. UrbanStems offers same-day delivery in Washington, D.C., New York City and Los Angeles.

Hudson said UrbanStems had never used the countdown timer on its homepage before Mother’s Day, so it ran an A/B test in which 25% of the site traffic had a timer on the page.

“We just wanted to make sure because our homepage was already converting so well,” Hudson said. “We didn’t want to mess with it too much.”

It increased conversion 2%, which Hudson said “wasn’t huge, but it was enough to say it was a clear winner.” Then, the timer went to 100% of UrbanStems’ audience.

UrbanStems also uses Zmags for its landing pages for site visitors coming from social media platforms. Some of those pages touted 11% conversion rates the week of Mother’s Day. Hudson said even though that’s when purchase intent is highest among UrbanStems shoppers, she and her team had not seen an 11% conversion rate for such a page.

Post-Mother’s Day

Hudson said UrbanStems did not run any paid social ads the week after Mother’s Day. Instead, the retailer is using the post-holiday time to reflect on what it has learned.

“We need to have customer reviews,” Hudson said.

Furthermore, UrbanStems must develop a landing page that prioritizes customer reviews higher on the page.

“Taking some of the testing we did and iterating on it after Mother’s Day is going to be really important,” Hudson said.

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A myriad of marketing efforts influence online shoppers in their buying behavior, with email still a driving force. When asked which efforts are influential, 43% of survey respondents said emails suggesting that items previously viewed are now on sale were most influential. It’s instructive that even general emails wielded influence among 39%, especially given the volume of emails we all receive. Others that also saw traction were back-in-stock emails (24%), items left in one’s cart (20%) and offers within order and shipping confirmation emails (13%).

Digital marketing channels with the most influence

Social media had a significant pull for 36% of participants, while advertising on social media also captured the attention for 27%. Ironically, influencers were less likely to drive a purchase and were only influential among 14% of respondents.

It certainly was a positive that more traditional marketing such as catalogs and other printed material were influential among 24% while the physical store or mall-based advertising were a factor in driving purchasing among 26%.

Marketers who try to optimize membership/loyalty programs are influential in driving conversion for 22% of surveyed online shoppers.

It’s exciting to see that text messaging is also making an impact from a marketing perspective as suggested by 21% of online shoppers.

The role of online advertising seems to be least influential on shopper buying behavior with advertising on search engines (16%), content visited online (14%) and retargeting that follows shoppers after viewing products online (10%).

Looking at email specifically shows why it remains a strong part of the retailer marketing arsenal. Half of shoppers open email advertising at least daily, while 25% view at least a few times a week, 9% weekly and 6% monthly.

Moving beyond simply opening the emails, one in three online shoppers purchases at least weekly based on the reading of their email. 16% even doing so daily or more. Beyond that active segment, 20% purchase weekly/few times a week, 23% monthly and the remaining 32% a few times a year. Just 9% indicated they never purchase as a result of an email.

Promotion-driven emails and order-related communication see highest open rates

When asked to identify their top-three most likely to open retailer email types, messages about promotions and discounts rise to the top as half of online shoppers say they open them. Those that provide communication also have high open rates and include the following confirmations: shipping (40%), order (38%) and delivery (32%). Others that saw interest include offers tied to loyalty programs (31%), free shipping messages (30%) and new product communiques (23%). Beyond these, back-in-stock emails saw traction among 17%, and seasonal activities came in at 15%. Meanwhile, requests to review purchased products at 14% and replenishment at 9% were of lesser interest. Email remains an important vehicle to market and inform.

A look into advertising seen when shopping in marketplaces such as Amazon or eBay revealed that this sponsored advertising influenced online buying all or most of the time for 35% of online shoppers, some of the time for 37% and rarely or never for 28%. It can be challenging for retailers to make their presence felt in these marketplaces but opportunistic for sellers at the same time.

Facebook is the social channel most likely to lead to an online purchase

Looking at six social channels and how they ranked from a top-two perspective in leading to online purchasing is instructive.

• Facebook: 58%
• YouTube: 45%
• Instagram: 40%
• Pinterest: 27%
• TikTok: 21%
• Snapchat: 10%

These findings suggest that Facebook, YouTube and Instagram may provide the best “commerce-related” digital marketing opportunities.

Over half of online shoppers are comfortable purchasing within a social media app or platform, which bodes well for digital marketing growth as well. The comfort numbers are as follows:

• Comfortable: 57%
• Not at all comfortable: 8%
• Prefer purchasing direct from retailer sites: 18%
• Don’t use social media for shopping: 17%

The majority of online shoppers don’t purchase from influencers (55%). And one in four will purchase directly from influencer content on the retailer’s website. Just 19% say they purchase through the influencer’s Linktree, suggesting its more limited role.

For those who use social media, discovery and appealing promotions top the list of why they shop via these platforms. 38% of online shoppers see social media as a new way to find products. 26% say they can try new brands and products, while 22% say they value influencers.

Not surprisingly, there is a convenience factor. 36% are already using social media regularly, making it naturally convenient. And 24% find themselves prompted by social media platforms, so they stay top-of-mind. Only 4% say they don’t shop via social media.

Retail media networks are increasingly accepting ads from a variety of brands and outside retailers. When survey respondents were asked about their interactions, three in four online shoppers either sometimes notice competitor advertising on retail media networks with no impact for the majority. Beyond the 24% who don’t pay attention at all, the findings were as follows:

Always look: 21%

• Sometimes impacts shopping: 11%
• Doesn’t impact shopping: 10%

Sometimes notice: 55%

• May impact shopping: 28%
• Doesn’t impact shopping: 27%

The customer will dictate how, where and when they will be susceptible to marketing. The bottom line is that the many possibilities for retailers to effectively market means vigilance, attention to planning and analyzing the results — with change the only constant.

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