New Report: 2022 E-commerce & Shipping Benchmarks

Whether you think your e-commerce is performing positively or negatively, the only way to get a true diagnosis is if you know how the industry at large is performing. In order to help aid in that effort, we’re excited to announce the launch of our 2022 E-commerce & Shipping Benchmarks Report.

Proudly partnered with Wix, this report takes a look at key metrics surrounding online sellers over the past year such as average order value (AOV) across segments, average shipping spend, the most popular international markets for U.S.-based sellers, and more.

We also inspect the current challenges e-commerce merchants face, the ways in which they’ve been able to stay ahead of the industry benchmarks, and some of the latest trends surging across e-commerce and shipping as a whole.

Below we give a sneak peek at what to expect from the larger report, though we recommend downloading the full report to get deeper insights and analysis.

E-commerce Industry Continues To Surpass Expectations

The Covid-19 pandemic was always expected to have a lasting effect on consumer buying habits. With many businesses on lockdown in 2020, consumers turned to online shopping as a solution. However, even with businesses opening their doors and returning to normal in 2021 and early 2022, many shoppers have stuck with their new habits.

About 41% of consumers do at least half of their shopping online. It’s because of that fact that online retail sales in the U.S. are projected to grow 16.1% in 2022 reaching $1.06 trillion in total.

Before the pandemic began experts believed that the industry wouldn’t reach the $1 trillion mark until 2024. The pandemic was not just a problem in the United States. With much of the globe coming out of lockdown over the past year the total number of online shoppers has grown.

There are now approximately 2.14 billion people across the globe that are purchasing items online. With more people to sell to, online merchants everywhere have turned to international shipping as a way to capitalize on other growing markets.

International E-commerce and Shipping Flying High

In order to maximize sales, many e-commerce businesses have started selling to customers beyond their borders.

In fact, 45% of U.S.-based merchants across the popular e-commerce segments of apparel, electronics, health/wellness, beauty/skincare, sports/outdoors, and jewelry on average sold and shipped products internationally over the past year.

While this percentage represents a significant portion of online U.S.-based retailers, it pales in comparison to online merchants based in other countries. Across those same segments, 74% of online sellers based internationally shipped to customers across their borders.

Selling and shipping internationally is the norm in many countries and is certainly becoming the norm in the U.S.

Online Shoppers Are Spending More

Along with globalization playing a part in the e-commerce and shipping landscape over the past year, another aspect was the increase in spending online.

According to our previous 2021 E-commerce Shipping and Fulfillment Benchmarks Report, the average order value in 2020 across product segments was $71.10. However, according to our latest report, that amount has climbed to $82.47.

While consumer prices for all items grew an average of 7% in 2021 due to inflation, the percent change in AOV climbed 16% signaling consumers’ willingness to spend more on items they see online.

Other Stats From the 2022 Benchmarks Report

Along with these data points, other stats and metric points to expect from the report include:

• Average order values for individual product segments
• Average delivery times for different types of e-commerce merchants
• The effects of seasonality on e-commerce sales throughout the year
• The top ten most popular destinations for shipping internationally
• The average amount of online sellers using shipping insurance
• The average number of e-commerce businesses using order tracking pages
• The average rate of returns for different product categories

Other major topics include supply chain disruptions, inflation in the U.S., shipping automation, e-commerce plugins, data protection, cybersecurity, and other e-commerce trends.

Download the report now to get an even more in-depth look at industry norms, growing trends, and metrics regarding important e-commerce and shipping benchmarks.