- Last month in eCommerce,
We got all the numbers back for the holiday shopping season
and man did y'all buy a lot of crap online or what?
Unfortunately,
we also got the product return numbers in.
Walmart has announced that
it's finally going to start trying
to leverage its main advantage over Amazon.
Toshiba launched an eCommerce platform
so we can buy crap directly from our refrigerators,
and Amazon's going to start building houses.
My name is TJ Gamble,
and this is Last Month in eCommerce
where we review the industry's top stories
from the last month.
There's quite a lot to unpack, so let's get right into it.
Our first story, is the holiday season numbers coming in
throughout January.
We're expecting it to be a big holiday season
with in store shopping
taking a big hit due to the pandemic.
I don't think we could have actually
expected what we saw though.
According to the website, Digital Commerce 360
more than $200 billion was spent online
in the U.S. alone in November and December.
And that's up 45% from 2019 sales,
and more than triple the year
over year growth rate from the same timeframe.
On a global scale, the growth was even bigger.
According to our report from Salesforce,
people spent more than $1.1 trillion online
during this past holiday season up 50% from 2019.
Expecting a busy holiday season a lot of retailers worked
to get people to order early.
It didn't exactly work.
The biggest surge still came in during cyber week
and the first two weeks of December.
Many retailers offered services like in-store
and curbside pick up in an effort to make shopping easier
and consumers rewarded those that did.
Salesforce found that people spent more online
at those retailers than at others.
Of course, the gains in sales didn't just come
from the holiday season.
Digital Commerce 360 found that,
in the United States eCommerce grew 44% in 2020
with almost 25% of all spending done online.
Unfortunately, with more buying comes more returning.
According to Loop Returns,
the number of online holiday purchases
that were returned jumped 41% in 2020 compared to 2019.
Experts have several ideas for why this happened.
Captain obvious suggested
that the increase in online shopping
probably had a big part in it.
However, there's also been an increased
in what's called bracketing
where people buy multiple versions
of the same item, usually clothes,
then try them on at home
and return those that don't work out.
And this has become easier for consumers in recent months
as more retailers have offered incentives
like free return shipping
and alternative local return sites for online orders.
According to the analytics firm Retail Next,
in store foot traffic dropped 33%
in the third week of January.
So, even though there've been some signs
of improvement in the local in-person shopping
there's no sign that the increase in online shopping
and returns will decrease anytime in the near future.
So, the way shopping looks has changed
and it could be that way for a very time.
A new report suggests that more
and more companies are looking online
to keep their businesses afloat.
According to data from BDO,
nearly two-thirds of CFO surveyed said,
their companies are investing in eCommerce in 2021.
That has a lot of companies doubling down
on their investments in eCommerce
which brings us to our next few topics.
Last month, Walmart announced that
it's finally ready to start leveraging
it's biggest advantage in the battle
for eCommerce market share.
And that's its network of physical locations
They piloted a local fulfillment center in New Hampshire
and are ready to start taking that concept national.
These will be smaller, more locally focused warehouses
connected to their neighborhood Walmart stores.
This move is set to make online ordering
that much easier for consumers
though it's unclear where these fulfillment centers
will actually pop up.
Walmart has had online delivery
and ordering for a while now,
which helped it secure 30% of all online food
and beverage transactions last year
according to a study by TABS Analytics.
Toshiba has launched a commerce platform called Elera.
The company released details about the platform
at the National Retail Federation conference
held virtually last month.
Officials say it will help retailers big
and small take technology matters
into their own hands by leveraging microservices.
The Elera platform appears to be focused on data solutions
and IOT or Internet of Things,
which is a fancy way of saying internet connected toasters
or refrigerators.
Toshiba says it's already in use by quote,
"High Volume Retail, grocery
and general merchandise segments."
Good for them.
In other news, Amazon is building houses
which seems odd out of context.
However, they're continuing to expand their operations
and their workforce needs places to live.
So, Amazon launched a $2 billion
housing equity fund last month
that will create over 20,000 homes
for moderate to low income families.
The program will start in three places
according to the company.
Washington state's Puget Sound region, Nashville
and Arlington Virginia.
All three areas are home to Amazon headquarters
and the company expects more
than 5,000 employees at each site.
Amazon officials say the fund will also give $125 million
in cash grants to organizations led by minorities
that help solve the affordable housing crisis in the U.S.
Some of the funds will go toward public agencies
like school districts and transit authorities as well.
Amazon says it expects the fund to grow as time goes on.
And that's what happened last month in eCommerce.
I'd like to thank you for watching
our first installment in this series.
With this being new, let me know if you liked it.
You hated it?
What stories I missed or your thoughts on these topics?
My name is TJ Gamble,
and I'm the CEO and founder of Jamersan.
Where we help businesses like yours take those next steps
in their eCommerce journey.
If you're ready to improve your business
and looking for help,
go to jamersan.com/go
and I look forward to speaking with you.
I appreciate you watching and I'll see you next time.