In the United States alone, ecommerce accounted for 22.0% of retail sales in 2023, according to Digital Commerce 360 analysis of U.S. Department of Commerce data. That was a record share, up from 21.2% penetration in 2022. However, it is also a level that still leaves room for new opportunities as sellers find new ways to connect digital transformation to buying habits.
Today marks the debut of the all-new Baird/Digital Commerce 360 Ecommerce Stock Index. It is a collaboration between Digital Commerce 360 and the wealth management, capital markets, asset management and private equity firm Robert W. Baird & Co. The index is intended to provide perspective into how companies and technology providers that power digital commerce are being valued in public markets. It contains four categories capturing activity extending throughout the Americas and China:
- Online marketplaces
- Online retail
- Ecommerce tech
- International companies
Readers should note that this index will complement insights from Digital Commerce 360’s Top 1000 data, which specifically tracks online retailers and their online sales in North America. The Baird/Digital Commerce 360 Ecommerce Stock Index, meanwhile, will cover both B2C retail and B2B ecommerce companies, in addition to the technology vendors that serve them, with a broader focus on global activity.
August results in the Baird/Digital Commerce 360 Ecommerce Stock Index
The Baird/Digital Commerce Ecommerce Stock Index increased 2.2% month over month in August versus July. During a month that saw back-to-school activity for apparel and school supplies, as well as some volatility for multiple sectors, this index’s change was still slightly below the 2.3% increase seen for the more general S&P 500 index, according to Colin Sebastian, Baird’s managing director and senior research analyst covering internet/ecommerce. Stepping back to view year-to-date activity, the ecommerce index is up 8.1%, a change that appears more modest when compared with the S&P’s 17.2% increase over the same period of time.
Meanwhile, looking at the individual subsectors tracked in the index, there were clear differences, which highlighted strong positive changes for Ecommerce Technology (up 5% year to date) and Online Marketplaces (up 4%). However, as those subsectors grew, Online Retail was down 2% year to date. International ecommerce was flat.
Baird views the August performance as reflective of ongoing healthy secular and online spending trends relative to the broader retail environment, although with August consumer trends weighing on investor sentiment.
Stocks leading the index in August
Among marketplace and technology stocks in the ecommerce index, three of the top performers in August, Xometry (XMTR), Mercado Libre (MELI) and Shopify (SHOP), highlight the kinds of growth stories that financial markets have rewarded.
For starters, Xometry, the B2B marketplace for manufacturers, increased its revenue 19% year over year to $133 million during its fiscal second quarter ended June 30. Xometry CEO Randy Altschuler touted the marketplace’s use of AI during its earnings call. On the call, he also pointed to 25% year-over-year growth for marketplace revenue and “record 33.5% marketplace gross margin,” which was enabled by the marketplace’s 61,530 active buyers. That number of buyers is up 27% from a year earlier.
Next, Mercado Libre, the Argentine and Uruguay-based company whose marketplaces and financial technology services operate throughout Central and South America, grew revenue 42% year over year to $5.1 million in its fiscal second quarter that ended on June 30.
Mercado Libre is No. 7 in Digital Commerce 360’s Global Online Marketplaces Database. The database ranks the 100 largest such marketplaces by third-party gross merchandise value (GMV).
Mercado Libre gross merchandise value by year
Third, Shopify set a new company record, eclipsing $1 trillion in cumulative GMV processed through its ecommerce platform. That milestone from its second quarter (also ended on June 30) accompanied a 20% year-over-year increase in GMV for the period, during which Shopify revenue reached $2.05 billion. That was good enough to become Shopify’s second-highest quarterly revenue ever, topped only by its fourth quarter in 2023.
In North America, 117 of the Top 1000 online retailers use Shopify as their ecommerce platform. The 117 online retailers combined for more than $9.72 billion in 2023 web sales.
Shopify gross merchandise value by year
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