H O L I D AY 2 0 1 3 E - C O M M E R C E R E C A P

Another year, another big season of online retail tucked under

the slightly larger belt. We took a moment to reflect upon the big

e-commerce data stories of 2013 and consider what’s in store

for the year ahead. The following data is derived from Custora’s

E-commerce Pulse, which tracks key US e-commerce statistics in

real-time based on aggregate data from over 100 US retailers.

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2CUSTORA Holiday 2013 E-Commerce Recap

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C Y B E R M O N D AY

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1. E-commerce was the shining star in a ho-hum holiday retail season.

While overall (online and offline) US retail growth during the

holiday season is estimated to be 4.1% over 20121, e-commerce

sales grew 12% year over year.

Traffic to online stores grew 15% over 2012, while conversion

remained strong at 2.5%, and average order value did not change.

This means there were many more online buyers this year, who

were not only browsing or researching, but also purchasing online.

Key e-commerce shopping days exhibited even stronger growth:

Black Friday sales were up 16% vs 2012, and Cyber Monday was up

18%, making it the biggest online shopping day in US history.

1 Source: US Department of Commerce

“ “

With six fewer days between Thanksgiving and Christmas than

last year, e-retailers had to adjust their marketing strategies to

drive online sales. Many found formulas that worked, however,

as online sales over the holidays rose 12% compared to 2012,

despite the shorter selling season.

z a k sta m b o r , i n t e r n e t r e ta i l e r | f u l l a r t i c l e

The trend is growing clearer. Faced with the choice of wet

weather, heavy traffic and cluttered environments, shoppers

will go online instead.

pa u l a r o s e n b l u m , f o r b e s | f u l l a r t i c l e

3CUSTORA Holiday 2013 E-Commerce Recap

2. The Mid-West continues to click, claiming the biggest regional growth.

The season’s growth wasn’t uniform across the country. Some

states grew much faster, whereas revenue grew more slowly or

even declined in others. Southern and Mid-west states led growth,

with e-commerce revenue in Oklahoma, Kansas, and Nebraska

growing an average 18% over 2012 (compared to the country-

wide growth average of 12%). Mature markets grew at a slower pace

or retracted this season, with orders in California growing only 7%

and in New York shrinking 2%.

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4CUSTORA Holiday 2013 E-Commerce Recap

50%3. Mobile commerce is booming. M O B I L E

E - C O M M E R C E

G R E W 5 0 %

Y E A R O V E R

Y E A R

Almost one in three purchases was made on a mobile device (phone

or tablet) during the holiday season, up from one in five in 2012.

Black Friday was “Mobile Friday”, with almost 40% of purchases

made on mobile devices, compared to only 25% in 2012.

Overall during the holidays, mobile phones accounted for 18% of

online purchases, while tablets accounted for 11%.

83%8 3 % O F

M O B I L E O R D E R S

W E R E M A D E

O N i P H O N E S

O R i PA D S

4. Apple still owns mobile shopping.

Apple devices (iPhones and iPads) still dominate e-commerce

with over 80% of mobile orders, but Android devices are gaining

share, with 16% of mobile orders this holiday season, up from 13%

in 2012.

The holiday season showed us that mobile and tablet users

are the new norm for e-commerce and the next frontier for

digital marketers. Connecting with these shoppers represents

arguably the single biggest opportunity for savvy marketers to

position themselves for success in 2014.

d i r e c t m a r k e t i n g n e ws | f u l l a r t i c l e

“

ANDROID 16%

2012

iOS 83%

2013

OTHER 1%

B L A C K F R I D AY

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M O B I L E

D E V I C E S

5CUSTORA Holiday 2013 E-Commerce Recap

41% 5. Email and search are key to

E-commerce success.

4 1 % O F O N L I N E

O R D E R S W E R E

AT T R I B U T E D

T O O R G A N I C A N D

PA I D S E A R C H

O R D E R S B Y C H A N N E L How did online shoppers find what they wanted?

Marketing emails from retailers can be attributed to almost a fifth

of all online holiday sales.

Google is still the gatekeeper to online shopping, with over 40%

of e-commerce orders originating on Organic Search (26%)

and Paid Search/SEM (15%).

2%S O C I A L M E D I A

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E - C O M M E R C E

S A L E S

6. Social commerce isn’t happening (yet?).

Social Networks (including Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and

Instagram) generated less than 2% of e-commerce sales during

the holidays shopping season, same as in 2012.

Retailers are filling up their Facebook pages and Pinterest boards

with items for sale this holiday season, but how many people are

actually clicking through to make a purchase? Not many.

c ot to n d e lo , a d ag e | f u l l a r t i c l e

ORGANIC

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SEM

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15%26%

1%

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EMAIL

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DIRECT

16%

2%

28%

“

6CUSTORA Holiday 2013 E-Commerce Recap

Receive updates on e-commerce stats for holidays, seasonal

reports, and industry performance.

Benchmark your Business

Online retailers can easily benchmark themselves against US

e-commerce industry performance along key performance metrics,

including revenue growth, conversion, average order value (AOV),

mobile purchases and marketing channel performance. Simply

follow the step-by-step process on the Custora Pulse “Benchmark

your data” section.

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W H O R E A D T H I S A R E

M O R E T H A N L I K E LY T O

B E N C H A R K T H E I R O W N

D ATA U S I N G T H E

C U S T O R A P U L S E

About Custora’s E-Commerce Pulse

The Custora Pulse tracks key US e-commerce statistics and allows

any retailer to benchmark their data in real time. The Pulse is based

on Custora’s analysis of over 70 million online shoppers and over

$10 billion in e-commerce revenue across over 100 US-based

online retailers. The Pulse also leverages external data points, such

as the US Department of Commerce e-commerce growth figures,

to extrapolate growth trends within the Custora data universe to

arrive at predictions for US industry at large.

About Custora

Custora is a customer-centric marketing platform that helps

e-commerce teams acquire, retain, and segment their customers.

Custora uses best-in-class predictive analytics models to help

retailers answer questions like: What are our best performing

customer acquisition channels? How do we convert more mem-

bers to active customers? How do we increase repeat purchase

rates? How do we re-activate lost customers? What makes our

most valuable customers different?

We work with several leading e-commerce retailers, including

LivingSocial, Etsy, Fab, Bonobos, One Kings Lane and many more

throughout Earth.

To learn more about e-commerce marketing analytics, check out

Custora U for courses about segmentation, lifecycle marketing,

cohort analysis and more.

Oh, and please direct inquires to info@custora.com.

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