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Best of Benchmarks, 2022

With 2022 behind us, digital looks to find some stable ground after a volatile year.

Here's a look at what has shaped shopping last year.

Three key measures of on-site consumption: session depth time spent per session, and scroll rate each fell on both devices.

Consumption Crisis

Grazing -- more, though fewer visits – takes its toll on visit dynamics.

9.4% of GMV is returned. But, that revenue is not all lost - between retained revenue and upsells from returns, net sales reaches 94.88%.

RMA: Returns Make Another (Purchase)

When life gives you returns…

3% of new visitors become buyers, and about 1/3rd of those buyers repeat.

The Path for Purchasers

Buyer behavior shows that purchases are not merely transactional.

Year-over-year growth has slightly rebounded, with 2 consecutive quarters of increases after reaching a valley of -4%

Dawn or Dusk?

eCommerce Growth issues a heavy hint

Social traffic - overall and especially on mobile - has flat-lined at 8% and 10% respectively.

SLOW-cial traffic?

The data tells us that social traffic growth has flat-lined. Is a deeper dive needed?

The Product Detail Page and Category page combine to deliver 86% of all crawls, and 45% of all visits.

The Pages of our (Search) Lives

The PDP and Category Page have an outsized impact in organic search.

One of Google's Core Web Vitals, Cumulative Load Shift, measures the amount that a screen shifts during a page load.

The Shift is Real

Cumulative Load Shift wreaks havoc on the shopper experience

Inventory turnover has dropped - especially amongst the top performers.

Supply (off-the) Chain

The kinks in the supply chain have been worked out. Now the bad news: Inventory.

Digital Drought

Traffic’s collapse has finally led to the inevitable - a digital (growth) drought.

Eyes on Efficiency

Returns and exchanges are not simply an after(purchase) thought

Keeping it Short

SMS has emerged as a first-class channel. Here’s how productive it is.

Share of traffic from paid traffic rose from 20% to 25% in 2022.

To Pay or Not to Pay

The digital upside-down: with CAC rising, brands are turning to paid channels more.

Product and assortment are the hallmarks of marketplaces, and driving growth of the channel.

Give ‘em what they want

Connecting shopper with product is at the heart of retail - and marketplaces are proving to be expert matchmakers.

Sites earn more conversions at fast load times, while bounces happen when page loads drag on.

Entering… the Bounce Zone

Slow page loads have a rather predictable outcome.

marketing sources perform differently on key site measures like bounce rate, add-to-cart, and abandoned cart rate.

Consider the Source

Not all traffic is considered equal. Knowing your shopper requires knowing their source.

A look into email marketing KPIs, comparing automated flows with promotional messags.

Know When to Send

In Comedy, Stocks, and Email, Timing Wins.

Traffic is flat to down in the last 3 quarters

Traffic Trough

Retail finds itself in unfamiliar territory - the flat (traffic) lands.

When a shopper has 2 poor experiences, they are 76% likely to switch brands

They Can’t Get No…

Attrition soars with dissatisfied experiences – here’s how much.

an alluvial diagram that shows attrition along steps of the journey

Anatomy of the Journey

From tip to tail, here’s how the shopper journey unfolds.

Shopper scroll rate reaches 52% across all retail verticals.

Unfurling the Scroll

Shopper scroll rate proves that shoppers are meeting brands halfway.

The bottom 20% of products are growing their contributions faster than the rest of the product catalog.

Long Tail is the Strong Tail

Top products may get the glory, while the long tail swells.

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