In the first third of 2024, retail ecommerce spending grew 7% year over year in the U.S., according to new Adobe Analytics data.
Adobe says its data is based on more than 1 trillion visits to U.S. retail ecommerce sites, 100 million SKUs and 18 product categories.
“In an unpredictable economic environment, the latest data from Adobe Analytics shows continued resilience in the digital economy, as consumers embrace new categories online,” said Vivek Pandya, lead analyst at Adobe Digital Insights, in a statement. “Groceries is a standout, and Adobe expects that in the next three years, the category will be a dominant force in e-commerce that is on par with electronics and apparel in revenue share.”
In total, 333 online retailers in the Top 1000 use Adobe for vendor services including — but not limited to — its ecommerce platform. Some use it for web analytics, performance and hosting, as well as cloud services and more. The Top 1000 is Digital Commerce 360’s database ranking the largest North American online retailers based on their annual web sales.
Top online retail sales categories through April
From Jan. 1 through April 30, consumers spent $331.6 billion online, the data shows.
Adobe Analytics projects more than $500 billion in U.S. retail ecommerce spending in the first half of 2024. That would represent at least 6.8% year-over-year growth, based on Adobe data from 2023.
Electronics, apparel and grocery sales guided retail ecommerce spending through April this year, Adobe said. Consumers spent $61.8 billion online on electronics (3.1% year-over-year growth), $54.5 billion on apparel (2.6% growth) and $38.8 billion on groceries (15.7% growth), the data showed.
The cosmetics category also grew year over year — up 8% to $13.2 billion. In all of 2023, the cosmetics category accounted for $35 billion in online sales, which was up 15.6% year over year.
Adobe found that within the grocery category, “goods with low inflation saw revenue grow by 13.4%, while products with high inflation saw revenue drop by 15.6%. The effect was less pronounced in a category such as cosmetics (revenue up 3.06% for low-inflation goods, down only 0.34% for high-inflation goods), as consumers exhibit stronger loyalty for their favorite brands.”
Consumers fight inflation while shopping online
Adobe separated its data into four price quartiles. Going back to January 2019 from April 2024, it found that the share of the cheapest products “increased significantly across categories.”
- Personal care (up 96%)
- Electronics (up 64%)
- Apparel (up 47%)
- Home/garden (up 42%)
- Furniture/bedding (up 42%)
- Grocery (up 33%)
Although to a lesser extent, the sales share of cheapest goods also grew for:
- Sporting goods (up 28%)
- Appliances (up 26%)
- Tools/home improvement (up 26%)
- Toys (up 25%)
Adobe noted that these are categories where brand loyalty has more of an impact on consumers’ decision-making. It also said consumers tend to invest in higher-quality products within these categories.
Retail ecommerce trends and forecasts in early 2024
In a different way of combating inflation, U.S. consumers continue to use BNPL (buy now, pay later) “for greater flexibility in managing their budgets,” Adobe said.
Through April this year, consumers used BNPL to spend $25.9 billion. That’s up 11.8% through the same period last year.
Adobe projects that to grow through 2024, driving between $81 billion and $84.8 billion. That would put year-over-year growth between 8% and 13%, Adobe said.
Mobile commerce also grew in the first four months of 2024, bringing in $156.9 billion in online sales. That’s up 9.8% over the same period in 2023. Adobe projects mobile sales to take a 52.5% share of online revenue in 2024 holiday spending (November through December). In the 2023 holiday season, mobile spending surpasses desktop for the first time at 51% share of November and December sales. Mobile spending in the 2023 holiday season peaked on Christmas at 61% share of sales.
When it comes to marketing channels, paid search has driven the largest share of sales this year, Adobe said. It attributes 28.2% of retail ecommerce spending to paid search, and:
- 19..6% to direct web visits
- 17.1% to affiliates/partners (17.1%)
- 15.9% to organic search (15.9%)
- 15.4% to email
Revenue that Adobe directly attributes to social media remained at less than 5% of total sales, but that share has grown 5.2% year over year in 2024. Organic search has declined 5.6%, Adobe said, driving 15.9% of total sales so far this year.
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