Demandware: Digital Commerce is on the Rise

Some might have believed that earlier projections about the fast pace of digital commerce were too optimistic.

A new report out from Demandware says that the earlier reports were actually insufficiently optimistic, as the numbers out from the second quarter of 2016 revealed people did a lot more shopping online than anyone may have seen coming.

Not only did digital commerce itself increase 22 percent in the second quarter, but shopping attraction—the measure of overall arrival on retail sites—was likewise up 24 percent for the quarter, which was all largely ahead of expectations.

Shoppers increasingly prefer mobile devices to do their shopping, with 16 percent of shoppers showing actual intent to make purchases—Buying Intent, as Demandware calls it—and mobile shoppers are producing the highest numbers of Buying Intent around.

Indeed, users of smartphones placed double the orders of tablet users, and phones are even pulling away some market share from PCs. Plus, more users are turning to social media for decisions on shopping; 2.7 percent of all digital traffic now comes from social media, and that’s up 55 percent from a year ago.

This is surprisingly bad news for retailers, though, who are finding profit margins on the decline as customers demand greater concessions on prices.

More shoppers wanting cheaper goods means lower profits throughout the system.

With the holiday shopping season approaching—it technically starts in about three weeks for the early birds who want to be ready to go by October—it’s worth getting a handle on the ways shoppers intend to shop, and it’s clear those shoppers plan to hit digital shopping hard.

By extension, that will include mobile payments at least somewhat, so for those who have a stake either way, it’s a good time to start considering how best to take advantage of this.

The obvious means for physical stores to get ahead is by using a shopping app, preferably one with a mobile payments system and loyalty program built in. That allows shoppers to take advantage of mobile proclivities while keeping them in the store.

Regardless of how it’s done, knowing that digital commerce is on an upward growth track right now is valuable information. That’s likely to have most shoppers turning to digital sources, proving I’m not the only one who’s staying out of malls in December.