Before Covid-19 hit, we knew that the global eCommerce market was growing YOY. Thanks to the pandemic, more people than ever are shopping online which has taken the eCommerce boom up a notch further. It’s a trend that doesn’t look set to change any time soon!

TAMI has also tracked an increase in the number of active eCommerce websites over the last while. In 2019 there were just over 500K UK websites in our system taking payments online. When we checked again in June this year, we found 714K websites. While much of this uptake can be attributed to ongoing data source enhancements, a significant number is related to Covid-19. The last 18 months has seen an explosion of new eCommerce websites as many companies took their businesses online.

Here’s a quick breakdown of the major global eCommerce markets for North America and Europe in 2021 and the top Payment providers. Note the number of eCommerce websites in Brazil – a steadily growing market and definitely one to watch!

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The European market is growing rapidly and accounts for more than 2 million websites. Research on Western eCommerce has traditionally focused on the US, UK and German markets. However, this breakdown identifies huge opportunities for payment companies wishing to target those less popular (yet also emerging) markets. Italy, France, Spain and The Netherlands are all growing YOY. TAMI has the strongest European merchant data including verified contact details of decision makers. If you’re considering selling into these markets please let us know ; we would love to partner with you and provide your Sales and Marketing teams with the right data for their outbound campaigns.

Also note how many of the top payment players are based in Europe – Klarna, Mollie, Adyen and Checkout.com are all making huge waves in this space!

** Click on the images to view full size **

This data is based on count of websites with evidence of online payments and payment provider mentioned.

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After the pandemic cool down a lot of retail stores were expecting a surge of customers rushing in through their doors. However, the ecommerce market continues to grow rapidly and some of the retail stores’ sales are still plummeting.

In the UK retail sales grew by 6.4% in July¹, substantially less than the three-month average of 14.7%. The Barclaycard reported that ‘’the spending on its cards was 11.6% higher in July than in the same month two years ago’’, showcasing the impact of the post-pandemic freedom on the entertainment industries’ growth. During the sunny month of July the expenditure went mostly towards outdoor dining, sporting events and other fun activities.

U.S. ecommerce is still rapidly increasing

Naturally, the delayed growth of retail sales meant that the ecommerce was still skyrocketing. Digital Commerce 360² found that ‘’ecommerce in U.S. reached $196.66 billion in Q1, up 39.0% year over year from $141.52 billion in the same quarter of 2020’’. People are hesitant to go back into crowded shops when shopping online has become so accessible.  It was discovered that ‘’the 39.0% growth in Q1 2021 is the second-highest pandemic period increase behind that Q2 2020 peak’’. To demonstrate the significance of the growth of the ecommerce market it must be noted that 2021 Q1 is the second-highest recorded rate for any Q1, behind 2001 when online sales grew by 42.7% due to the new and unfamiliar ecommerce market gaining popularity.

Ecommerce growth all around the globe

The U.S. is not the only country where significant ecommerce growth was experienced. Our Market Intelligence tells us that there are nearly 2 million global retail websites that are taking payments online and shipping products. The whole digital world is faced with hungry buyers.

For example South Korean ecommerce continues to grow year on year. ‘’In 2019, 88.5% of the nation’s population used at least one e-commerce platform, and this is forecast to rise to 94.4% in 2023.’’³

Latin America also encountered an ecommerce growth during 2020. Argentinian ecommerce experienced a growth of 79%, becoming a country where ecommerce grew the most in 2020. In Mexico there is 65% of internet user penetration rate and only 37% of the population has a bank account, therefore ecommerce is increasing rapidly due to digital wallets and mobile apps.

Indian ecommerce market is forecasted to grow 21% annually over the next four years. The increasing digitalization and internet adaptation is benefitting the Indian market in a rapid rate.

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Big brands are overtaking the digital market

The continuous fast growing ecommerce market has allowed for new markets and companies to emerge all over the world. Although a lot of smaller companies are being overtaken by big brands due to their monopoly position in the market, a lot of businesses had no choice but to turn to online retail in order to keep their company afloat during Covid-19. Innovation during the pandemic gave rise to personalized websites offering more deals and quicker shipment.

As a result of Covid-19 we began to see important factors such as trust contribute to the growth in the ecommerce market for particular suppliers. It was the big names within the ecommerce market that benefited the most due to the trust factor. These people went to familiar brands such as Amazon as they know and love this company. As a result, Amazon’s U.S. revenue hit $60.44 billion in Q1 this year⁵,up to 42.3% from $42.48 billion last year. This is nearly double the growth from the 23.9% growth increase last year in 2020 for the same quarter. Amazon accounted for 30.7% of all U.S. ecommerce in Q1 and as Digital Commerce 360 puts it ‘’were responsible for nearly a third of growth in the online sector from January through March.’’

With online retailers evolving and providing improved services the prognosis of ecommerce for 2021 is positive.

Bibliography

1. More high street stores close as retail recovery stutters | Retail industry | The Guardian
2. US ecommerce sales rise 9.3% in Q2 2021 | Digital Commerce 360
3. The emerging e-commerce markets of 2021 (dhl.com)
4. Top 5 countries for retail ecommerce sales growth in 2021 – Insider Intelligence Trends, Forecasts & Statistics (emarketer.com)
5. Amazon sales, Amazon revenue and Amazon annual profits (digitalcommerce360.com)

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The emergence of covid-19 this year has wreaked havoc across the globe, from small sole traders to large multi-national companies. The pandemic has highlighted the importance of adaptability, as many businesses have had to shift operations from offices to sitting rooms and alter business plans to facilitate the shift to online shopping. According to Geekwire (2020), 42% of Americans bought groceries online in March 2020, almost double the 22% recorded in 2018. However, this shift to online purchasing may not be temporary, as half of those who have switched to online grocery shoppers intend to remain doing so after the pandemic. If this isn’t enough to convince you eCommerce is the way forward, in 2019 Episever stated that 62% of online shoppers will shop at least monthly.

What This Means for The eCommerce Market

Although covid-19 decimated high street retail, the industry has been in decline for the last 10 years. Prior to the pandemic, a number of retailers went into administration in 2019 such as Mothercare, Jack Wills and Select Fashion. Similarly, the downfall of Thomas Cook in 2019 could be pinned to their inability to accept the transformation to online and mobile booking, as they remained operating 500 high street stores, when the vast majority of holiday reservations were made through online platforms.
The surge in online shopping has worked in favor for those with a strong online presence, as transaction volumes in the majority of retail sectors have experienced a 74% rise in March compared to the same period last year. With eCommerce sales expected to surpass 1.1 trillion dollars by the end of 2020, we can expect the eCommerce market to continue to expand with new players looking for a piece of the pie.

What TAMI Can Do for You

So what does our technology do exactly? We have scanned the entire Internet and as you can see above, categorized all the eCommerce sites into the countries where they trade from. However, this is only a small fraction of the data we can provide. We can drill down and show you data points such as;
– The website technology being used,
– Website and Email host,
– Countries they ship to,
– The payment provider(s) and accepted payment methods.
This is still a brief example of the data we collect, if you would like to find out more, get in touch with our sales team and discover how we’re helping companies strive during the pandemic.

The post Sizing The eCommerce Market appeared first on TAMI.

Relative to other countries the eCommerce market in Costa Rica is quite small with only 4183 active websites and only 580 eCommerce sites shipping products. According to recent statistics, figures show that 68% of a 5 million population have an account with a financial institution, despite only 14% acquiring a credit card. This will explain why eCommerce has not fully taken off. It appears that 27% make online purchases and/or pays bills online, likely with PayPal considering 51% of all online merchants use their services. They are by far one of the biggest payment providers in Costa Rica today. The eCommerce market is very heavily focus towards Travel, Hospitality and services.

Travel

Costa Rica is a very popular Tourist destination and was rated as one of the top 10 most popular countries to travel to according to Google. This is a popular travel spot for Americans who have a reputation for stateside travel. The percentage of Americans who have a passport is now 42% up from just 4% in 1990. Costa Rica attracts over 3.1M visitors a year. COVID-19 will have a significant impact on their economy as a result of loss of consumer confidence by Europeans and Americans to book travel.

Internet Users in Costa Rica

There were 3.76 million internet users in Costa Rica in January 2020, which is equivalent to 74% of their total population. The number of internet users in Costa Rica increased by 157 thousand (+4.4%) between 2019 and 2020. Internet penetration in Costa Rica stood at 74% in January 2020.

Interesting enough in December 2019, 63.7% of Costa Rica’s population accessed the Internet via laptops & desktops, in comparison to only 34.8% using their mobile phones in order to browse the web. This figure is quite astounding as mobile phones have become the new norm, with nearly everyone possessing them. Evidently, this is not the case in Costa Rica. However, the usage of mobile phones has increased by 2.7% from December 2018. It seems as if they are slowly on the rise.

Social Media Users in Costa Rica

There were 3.70 million social media users in Costa Rica in January 2020. The number of social media users in Costa Rica increased by 146 thousand (+4.1%) between April 2019 and January 2020. Social media penetration in Costa Rica stood at 73% in January 2020.

Facebook is considered the most popular social media site, with Facebook reporting 3.30 million people in Costa Rica can be reached through adverts. Although we recently discovered laptops & desktops are more prominent in Costa Rica, mobile phones are valued more when connecting to Facebook, as 99.1% use the mobile phone as to 0.9% using a laptop or desktop.

Mobile Connections in Costa Rica

There were 9.05 million mobile connections in Costa Rica in January 2020. The number of mobile connections in Costa Rica increased by 600 thousand (+7.1%) between January 2019 and January 2020. The number of mobile connections in Costa Rica in January 2020 was equivalent to 178% of the total population.

The use of Android devices tends to be much greater than the use of Apple devices in Costa Rica, considering 80% of the population occupy an Android device and only 19.7% of the population occupy an Apple device. Apple devices are on the decline, with figures displaying between December 2018 and December 2019, there was a fall of 6.8% Apple users.

We help companies to size their entire market opportunity and find all of the leads for their Sales teams through our analysis of the Internet. We identify where they should focus their efforts to generate the most revenue and ensure that the companies they target are the right ones. We know the eCommerce industry better than anyone else. Please get in touch if you would like to know more: hello@tami.ai.

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With country leaders around the world imposing lock-down measures and permitting only businesses that provide ‘essential services’ to operate, retailers have ‘closed up shop’ until further notice. It remains uncertain how long this pandemic will last and there is already talk of a global recession occurring as a result. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) recently published its World Economic Outlook for 2020 and 2021, and unsurprisingly, claims that: “The global economy is projected to contract sharply by –3 percent in 2020, much worse than during the 2008–09 financial crisis. Just look at USA which will contract by over 5.9% and in UK this is worse at 6.5% contraction.”

It’s Bad News for the High Street Retailers

Last November we published an article about the threat of Amazon to retailers, mentioning Primark as one of the few ‘untouchables’ against the marketplace giant.

“Going online would have a negative impact on its [Primark] business model. Fulfillment, website hosting & payment gateway capabilities are just some of the costs that would quickly incur for the fashion retailer, which would in turn offer meagre profit margins due to its competitive pricing strategy.”

No boardroom could have foreseen the devastating impact that the Covid-19 pandemic would have on Primark’s revenue, after the retail giant was forced to close all 376 of its stores in March – the company is now set to lose £500M in sales per month and has already written off £284M worth of stock. Other retailers feeling the pressure of the Covid-19 outbreak include Debenhams, Cath Kidston, Oasis and Warehouse which have all recently filed for administration. While Debenhams aims to reopen as many stores as possible, Cath Kidston has no plans to reopen any of its 60 stores, with more than 900 staff losing their jobs. Arcadia Group, parent company of fashion brands including TopShop, Miss Selfridge and Dorothy Perkins has also raised questions over its ability to survive the Corona crisis after recently implementing a pay freeze on pension schemes and seeking rent cuts from landlords.

eCommerce Retail is Booming

Grocery is one of the few sectors that remains open for business, with retailers experiencing a record breaking spike in turnover – March had the biggest month of grocery sales ever recorded in the UK. However, as more people are now staying at home, Supermarket resources are being pushed to the limit as they struggle to provide enough delivery slots for online orders and click and collect purchases. This means that consumer behaviour is changing and people are now doing their grocery shopping online. In fact, March was the first time in US history that consumers bought more groceries online than in-store.

Q1 of 2020 saw an increase of 20% in eCommerce revenue, compared with 12% during Q1 of 2019. January-March 2020 even outperformed the last quarter of 2019, aka the holiday shopping season. Some of the online retail sectors seeing an unexpected surge in sales include electronics, homeware & DIY, health & fitness equipment and pet food/accessories. Unsurprisingly, many retailers are experiencing issues with their supply chain as they struggle to process the exponential number of online orders. Traditionally, commercial airlines would generate up to 15% of their revenue from cargo, but that percentage has increased significantly since March – Virgin Atlantic recently operated its first ‘cargo only’ flight.

As a result of the global pandemic, Amazon’s stock is set to increase by 20%, accelerating the company’s market value to more than $1 trillion. The eCommerce marketplace is said to be reaching global sales of $11,000 per second, but is scrambling to hire enough staff to cope with the extra demand. However, it’s claimed that workers from more than 50 of the company’s US warehouses are suspected to be infected by the virus, resulting in major concerns surrounding social distancing and transmission.

Other eCommerce retailers are also struggling to manage the sheer volume of online orders; in an unprecedented response to the growing demand, Boots and B&Q were just two companies that implemented a queueing system to access their website. Next, which had ceased online operations due to the virus outbreak, reopened its website in late April, only to reach a self-imposed daily limit of orders within a few hours. In a bid to combat bandwidth issues, German based eCommerce personalisation company commercetools has launched a new product, Accelerator, to support etailers by implementing enterprise level applications on their eCommerce sites within only a few weeks source –  the tool is designed to help companies meet the demand and peaks in online ordering.

eCommerce Services Sharing in Covid-19 eCommerce Success

It’s clear that online retail is experiencing huge growth during the Covid-19 pandemic, and the same can be said for several sectors within the Digital Goods industry. More time spent at home means more time watching television, connecting with family members through virtual chat platforms, and streaming music/films. In the first quarter of 2020, Netflix gained nearly 16 million new subscribers, resulting in a 22% increase YoY. Video conferencing platform Zoom has also seen a significant increase in its user base, reaching 300 million users by mid April. eLearning is another sector which is thriving, as many schools and colleges around the world have been forced to continue with curriculums in a virtual capacity.

Thousands of organisations around the world are in a similar situation as they make the arduous transition to remote working. In March alone, people development solution company Cornerstone reported a 6x increase in the number of hours spent on its platform. Google Trends has also reported a significant spike in search interest for the term: “online learning platforms” between mid-March and April.

Travel, Hospitality and Ticketing Sectors Suffer

Despite many eCommerce services thriving during the global lockdown, several sectors are going in the opposite direction. As country leaders around the world enforce the closure of ‘non-essential’ businesses, the impact has resulted in pubs, restaurants and hotels closing their doors – something that has not happened since the War. This also means that no mass gatherings can take place, and thousands of events have been postponed and cancelled. In the UK, nearly 30,000,000 music fans attended live events during 2018, which means that companies such as Ticketmaster, Live Nation and S.J.C are all set to experience dramatic revenue losses in the months ahead. Major sporting events including the Olympics and Euro 2020 have also been postponed until 2021, while Wimbledon has been cancelled.

The outbreak has also affected the hospitality industry hugely, with a predicted 65% drop in hotel reservations. Online booking engine Expedia has recently raised $3.2 billion to help strengthen its balance sheet in response to the significant decrease in number of people travelling. Netherlands-based company Booking.com has also been massively affected by the pandemic and has sought financial help from the Dutch Government.

Where Should Businesses Targeting eCommerce Focus Their Efforts?

Covid-19 is having a devastating impact on businesses around the world, yet eCommerce has inadvertently capitalised as a result. Based on a deep dive analysis by our data team, TAMI has identified the major growth areas within eCommerce industries in the United States, United Kingdom and Canada. The following sectors are lucrative business opportunities for companies interested in targeting eCommerce merchants, based on consistent growth patterns that we’ve seen: DIY, Home Furniture & Furnishings, Pharmaceutical, Medical Devices, Fashion, Cosmetics, Car Parts, Food & Drink, Pet Food Accessories, Consumer Electronics, Online Gaming, Video Conferencing, Video streaming, Sports Equipment and clothing, Vaping, Online Learning and Books.

Below is an example for Pet Food:

We help companies to size their entire market opportunity and find all of the leads for their Sales teams through our analysis of the Internet. We identify where they should focus their efforts to generate the most revenue and ensure that the companies they target are the right ones. We know the eCommerce industry better than anyone else. Please get in touch if you would like to know more: hello@tami.ai.

The post The Effects of Covid-19 on Global eCommerce appeared first on TAMI.

The United States is currently the second largest eCommerce market globally in terms of revenue generation, with China taking first position. This may seem surprising, however it’s estimated that in 2019 alone, Chinese shoppers will spend $2 trillion online, with retail sales set to bypass those made in the US by more than $100 billion. Based on this fact, it’s no wonder that China’s eCommerce market has surpassed the US; not to mention the fact that China’s population also exceeds the US by 1 billion.

Here’s how the global eCommerce landscape looks at the moment based on market value:

Internet/Mobile Usage

In 2000, less than 50% of US adults were using the Internet – today, 9 out of 10 US adults are using the Internet. According to Statista, the household adoption rate of Internet in the US has seen a dramatic increase between 1997 and 2011, jumping from 19% to 72%. Internet usage is most ubiquitous among young adults, college graduates, and those from high income households. This means that the number of homes with broadband varies depending on different demographic variables.

Mobile usage has also seen incredible growth in the US within the last number of years – in fact, mobile internet consumption has grown by more than 500% since 2011 alone. More than half of all video streaming comes from mobile devices, and US consumers spend 90% of their time on mobile using downloaded apps. With consumption commonly occurring between multiple devices, it’s also no surprise that 76% of US consumers use their phones simultaneously while watching television.

US eCommerce Market

Currently, eCommerce is valued at $520 billion in the United Sates, with retail accounting for more than 90% of that figure. The US market’s largest segment is fashion, with a value of $103B. User penetration is currently at 80% and is expected to hit 83% by 2023. The average revenue per user (ARPU) currently amounts to $1,388.73, and this figure is still growing. In 2018, the most popular website was Amazon, which generated $63 billion in online sales of physical goods in the US alone. In fashion, Macy’s came out on top after generating $3.6 billion in online sales – however, Amazon came in at no. 2 with $2.5 billion. Here’s the breakdown of the top 10 US eCommerce retailers within the fashion segment in 2018 (measured in millions US dollars)

Despite such exponential spend online, there are still two sides to the eCommerce coin – it’s estimated that 3/4 of shoppers choose to leave a website without completing a purchase – in other words, they abandon their cart. This can be further broken down into 4 main reasons: shipping costs were too high, the discount code the shopper had did not work, the order would take too long to ship, the shopper had to re-enter their credit card information again, and the shopper had to re-enter their shipping information again.

What’s interesting is the number of millennials who still shop in-store as opposed to online; the breakdown is just 60% vs 40% between online shopping and local stores (the 60% is further broken down into laptops/desktops (24%) and mobile (36%). Some of the reasons for millennials preferring to shop in local stores include: having to wait for products to be delivered when ordered online, and not being able to see, hold or try on items before buying when done so online.

The Amazon Takeover

While Amazon has 4% of the total global retail market, its share in the US alone is at almost 50%. It’s currently the second largest employer in the United States and traffics more than 1/3 of all retail products bought or sold online. Some critics have emphasized the importance of recognizing Amazon’s clout, as online spend is growing at triple the pace of overall retail. This is further supported by the fact that at least 95 million of US shoppers have an Amazon Prime account (to put this into perspective, that’s more than the entire population of Germany!) The retail giant also launched its counter pick-up service in June (where shoppers can have their orders delivered to partner stores), and has recently (and rather strategically) added thousands of new pick-up locations around the country…right in the middle of Q4, the busiest online shopping period of the year.

Amazon currently experiences monthly website traffic volumes of up to 200 million in the US alone, which isn’t surprising considering the sheer success that the company has experienced over the last number of years. However, it has also experienced some very heavy criticism, especially from politicians in recent times. Senator Bernie Sanders said of Amazon earlier this year: “Five hundred thousand Americans are sleeping out on the street, and yet companies like Amazon, that made billions in profits, did not pay one nickel in federal income tax”. Although the company saw a massive profit increase in 2018, it will actually receive a tax rebate of $129 million this year.

Download the full US market report – get insights on top shipping, payment companies, reasons why people abandon carts in US and more.

Outlook for the US eCommerce Market

The US eCommerce market, most notably Amazon, is having a big impact on the high street and it is expected that this year, over $365B will be generated in online sales. It’s also expected that 2020 will have an annual growth rate (CAGR 2019-2023) of 11.6%, resulting in a market volume of $565B by 2023. It’s also thought that 90% of all sales will happen online or by mobile by 2050, and in 2020, we will continue to see large high street retailers closing as Amazon wins more eCommerce market share and more users continue to shop online.

The post eCommerce Report: US Internet User Profile appeared first on TAMI.

Yet another high street Stallworth has shut down; Mothercare UK has become the latest victim of the retail revolution. Despite online sales being up in 2018, the company made a loss of £208 million compared to a £10 million loss in 2017. Directors attributed this to an increase in adjusted items, e.g. property and restructuring costs, foreign currency adjustments, etc. The company recently announced that it will close all 79 stores across the UK, resulting in a loss of 2,500 jobs. The retail chain is said to have been “under pressure for years as families looking for budget options relied on supermarket brands and online retailers such as Amazon.” Unfortunately, retail giants such as Amazon are capable of undercutting brands like Mothercare at every turn, and for retailers in general, this is by no means a rare occurrence.

Challenges for Offline Retail

The main challenge brick and mortar retailers face is the same challenge facing millennials…high rent and property prices. The likes of Mothercare requires prime real estate to survive; a cost that pure online retailers such as Amazon and ASOS simply don’t have to worry about. Not to mention all of the additional costs that a physical store incurs, such as paying service staff, light & heating, etc. Changing trends are also influencing the convenient ‘virtual experience’ on the average consumer who is time poor and therefore less inclined to shop on the high street. MotherCare’s profit lost means that consumers are evidently looking elsewhere for products. This is reflected in over 70% of consumers saying that Amazon is their number one option for online shopping, leaving little room for the MotherCares and offline retailers of this world.

There are few exceptions to the rule of online retail equalling absolute success – Primark is a perfect example of a physical retailer that doesn’t need an online presence to be successful. In fact, going online would have a negative impact on its business model. Fulfillment, website hosting and payment gateway capabilities are just some of the costs that would quickly incur for the fashion retailer, which would in turn offer meager profit margins due to its competitive pricing strategy.

The Amazon Takeover

86% of the UK population has used eCommerce giant Amazon at some point, and 59% claim to be loyal users. This is largely due to the sheer scale that Amazon operates at. Sellers need to offer top rate customer service in order to compete against other sellers as feedback is one of the biggest indicators of success; tools like Feedback Whiz are there to lend a hand too. Buyers in 2019 heavily rely on reviews outside Amazon too, hence why companies like TrustPilot and Feefo work well for retail in general, but feedback on Amazon is a lot simpler and easy to navigate with a straightforward 5 star system. Also, thanks to Amazon’s massive supply chain and logistics infrastructure, orders are typically fulfilled punctually, which is vital – FBA also pitches the logistics industry against itself, thus driving down fulfillment costs that ultimately save the consumer significant money. As with all things Amazon, it’s not necessarily best for its partners or competitors, but it sure is good for consumers!

Let’s also not forget the convenience factor of Amazon. While high street retailers graciously piggybacked off the success of the American invention of the “shopping mall” with dozens of shops in one place, Amazon has now digitally replaced it and few competitors can compete either in an offline or online capacity.

Morality of the Consumer

Despite 45% of consumers believing that Amazon is to blame for retailers closing, 40% also believe that it’s good for “independent retail.” Although, how you define “good for independent retail”? Marketplaces like Amazon and Alibaba almost favor smaller sellers – they essentially force them to drive down prices and compete against fellow sellers with a capitalistic “lowest price, free for all” strategy. This is also echoed by Amazon’s own customer base – over half of its users believe that Amazon has the best prices. Amazon sellers also have a plethora of software tools like CashCow Pro and Profitero to help them crunch the numbers, calculate precise margins and ultimately reprice based on competitors’ sales and current offers in real time.

While retail giants like Zara are at no risk of collapsing at the moment, SMB players will have to get very creative to avoid selling out to Amazon or going under. This also stands true for new sellers to the market – take GymShark for example, which has used social media influencers and product placement (among various other social media tactics) to grow its brand awareness. This may perhaps be the only way forward for retail’s next generation. The merchants of tomorrow will most likely stick to being pure play online. For example, ASOS has already created its own pure play online marketplace that has had huge success so far. As our good friend Bob Dylan once said, “The times they are a changin'”, and I struggle to see how the high street can avoid being a ghost town in 10 years from now.

Further information can be found by downloading our UK market report, find out the top shipping companies, reasons consumers abandons shopping carts and more

The post The Threat of Amazon to eCommerce Retailers appeared first on TAMI.

With a population of 37 million, Canada doesn’t fare too badly as the 8th largest eCommerce market in the world. Currently, 92% of Canadians use the Internet, with 86% having a broadband internet connection in their homes. Also interesting is the fact that 52% of Canadians have 5 or more connected internet devices in their homes – this is broken down into the following:

Unsurprisingly, 26% of all social media usage in Canada comes from 25-34 year olds, with Facebook being the most popular platform (77% usage). According to CIRA (Canadian Internet Registration Authority), 73% of Canadians spend at least 3-4 hours online each day – this is made up of the following activities: email, banking, accessing social media, catching up on news/current events and shopping.

Mobile now makes up almost 1/3 of all media consumption, meaning that it’s now on par with TV usage. However, there is also a rising concern surrounding the amount of time that Canadians are spending on their mobile devices…however, it could be argued that this is actually a global concern and trend that doesn’t seem to be slowing down any time soon. This is especially true as 58% of Canadian households have at least one digital content subscription – Netflix remains the most frequently used streaming platform followed by Spotify.

Canadian eCommerce Market

The Canadian eCommerce market is currently valued at C$54B in 2019 and is still growing (and with roughly 86% of Canadians shopping online, that’s at least 31M+ people using the Internet to make a purchase). It’s also claimed that while traditional retail growth has somewhat flatlined, eCommerce appears to continuously be on the upward trajectory – it’s estimated that eCommerce sales will amount to at least C$65B by 2020 – an increase of 20%. In terms of shopping location, despite Nunavut being the largest province in Canada in terms of land mass, it has the lowest population and number of eCommerce websites. Ontario, which accounts for 38% of the country’s population, has both the highest number eCommerce websites in the country – this is unsurprising as largely populated areas such as Toronto, Hamilton and Ottawa (the nation’s capital) are situated here.

Despite computers being the most popular device to make online purchases from, 40% of Canadian eCommerce sales were made through mobile devices in 2018. This figure has increased each year since 2014 (when only 28% of online purchases were made through mobile phones). Fast-loading sites and apps are crucial to ensure that mobile shoppers have a positive buying experience, particularly as slow loading sites are a contributing factor to cart abandonment (one study reported that 15% of Canadian shoppers abandoned their carts solely for this reason) – tools such as Google’s PageSpeed Insights and GTmetrix are great in identifying speed issues with your website (both mobile and desktop), with some tips on how to improve things.

Unsurprisingly, fashion is the most popular eCommerce segment in Canada, with a market value of C$12B. However, it’s also reported that almost half of Canadian shoppers refrain from purchasing goods online if the retailer does not offer free returns. From TAMI’s analysis, only 38% of Canadian retailers offer returns so this is something that needs to be addressed by retailers in order to improve shoppers’ online buying experience, and also to reduce cart abandonment rates.

Below is the share of online spend by product/service category – although not included here, a segment that seen a large increase in online spend is food/grocery, jumping from 14% in 2016 to 24% in 2018.

What’s also interesting is the list of most popular eCommerce websites based on Canadian Alexa rank; the top two positions are currently dominated by marketplace giants Amazon and eBay. Although this is somewhat unsurprising considering that twice as many Canadians have registered with Amazon Prime in 2019 compared to in 2018. Walmart, BestBuy and Etsy also feature within the top 5, with the first Canadian retailer (Canadian Tire) not making an appearance until 7th place.

Outlook for the Canadian eCommerce Market

Retail eCommerce is expected to reach C$65B in 2020 (up 20% from 2019), and will represent 10% of all retail sales (compared to 8% in 2019). Mobile will make up almost 32% of eCommerce sales, with retail mobile sales also anticipated to grow 27% next year.

Despite forecasted growth in eCommerce, Canada’s position as 8th largest eCommerce market in the world still means that it’s lagging behind similar economies. This is largely due to the scale of the country and slowness of domestic retailers to invest in the necessary eCommerce technology and logistics. That is all about to change, as Amazon prepares to open a new $120-million warehouse next year. This means that the battle is well and truly on between Amazon and eCommerce retailers, with only 9% of retailers offering same/next day shipping. Hopefully with help from both the Canadian government & shipping companies, retailers will be able to catch up and provide alternative shopping options to Amazon, and transform Canada into one of the best eCommerce markets in the world.

The post eCommerce Report: Canadian Internet User Profile appeared first on TAMI.

This new feature led to a big change in how people browse the Internet. The impact on user behaviour has been staggering, with a reported 25% drop in user visits to HTTP pages with password or credit card forms on desktop. This drove many of enterprise, eCommerce websites around the world, e.g. asos.com, to update all of their website pages to be HTTPS compliant.

Two years on, Google Chrome 72 deprecates support for TLS 1.0, TLS 1.1 due to the low adoption of valid certificates. We carried out some analysis on this on UK websites, and uncovered thousands that are using a false certificate or none at all!

In a nutshell, this means the end of HTTP-based Public Key Pinning (HPKP), a practice that pins one or more of a website’s public keys in a HTTP header. Ironically it was this practice that would help to defend against mis-issuance of certificates, but in reality it was found by Google and other companies to be potentially dangerous.

HPKP is challenging to use correctly because it’s so difficult to build a set of pinned keys that’s guaranteed to work. This comes as a result of the ever-evolving nature of the digital certificate industry and the variance in user trust stores. As a result, HPKP can cause websites to break and create lots of errors. It can also be weaponized (though there has never been a confirmed case of this happening). Google has already announced its plans to deprecate HPKP, and now support has been removed entirely from Chrome 72.

According to Chris Palmer, Security Engineer at Google, PKP offers a way to defend against certificate mis-issued, by providing a Web-exposed mechanism (HPKP) for sites to limit the set of certificate authorities (CAs) that can issue for their domain. However, this exposes as part of the Open Web Platform considerations that are external to it: specifically, the choice and selection of CAs is a product-level security decision made by browsers or by OS vendors, and the choice and use of sub-CAs, cross-signing, and other aspects of the PKI hierarchy are made independently by CAs.

As a consequence, site operators face difficulties selecting a reliable set of keys to pin to, and adoption of PKP has remained low. When site operators’ expectations don’t match the reality of trust anchors on real world client machines, users suffer. Unexpected or spurious pinning errors can result in error fatigue rather than user safety.

Misuse of Certificates

TAMI analysed 968,659 active websites in the UK. Similar to Google, we found a big problem with over 254,000 sites using an invalid certificate, and 150,000 sharing the same certificates. Why is this significant? Each certificate should be unique to the website or parent company. Let’s look at ASOS:

We can clearly see that this certificate is owned by ASOS.com Limited, and the company number is even quoted. Now let’s look at World Food Aid:

Google has marked this website “Not Secure.” The reason for this is that the company information is incorrect. From our analysis, only 6% of websites that have a valid certificate actually declare their company legal name as well as the website domain name.

Top 10 UK Vendors

Following a review of 968,659 websites, here are the top 10 UK vendors that issue certificates (ranked by number of hosts).

This is the most popular SSL/TLS certificate provider as it scored well with over 93% of sites using valid certificates. Let’s Encrypt is a free, automated, and open certificate authority by the non-profit Internet Security Research Group. Market share: 46%.

cPanel scored well with 93% of sites using valid certificates that are hosted on this platform. cPanel is an online Linux-based web hosting control panel that provides a graphical interface (GUI) and automation tools designed to simplify the process of hosting a website to the website owner or “end user”. Market share: 11%.

74% of websites were found to have valid certificates however we found a high volume using the same certificate. Market share: 10%.

58% of websites were found to have valid certificates however 42% of certificates were invalid. Market share: 10%.

GlobalSign is one of the worst in class when it comes to TLS/SSL certificates, with only 9% of sites having valid certificates. Over 91% of websites were deemed invalid. Market share: 8%.

Only 61% of sites using Starfield Technologies were valid, with over 39% of sites deemed invalid. Market share: 3%.

Although this is not one of the most popular certificate providers, it was the best in class with over 99% of all certificates issued being fully compliant on both website verification and encryption. Market share: 3%.

TrustWave ranked worst in class as a certificate provider, with only 3% of sites having valid certificates. Over 97% of sites performed poorly, as the certificates were invalid. Market share: 3%.

90% of websites had a valid certificate with Sectigo, and only 10% had invalid certificates. Comodo is now part of Sectigo, that claims to be the largest commercial Certificate Authority in the world (however, in the UK they are outranked by Let’s Encrypt). Market share: 3%.

76% of websites using GoDaddy had a valid certificate, with 24% having invalid certs. Market share: 3%.

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