Shopping

• The convenience retail market in the UK will grow 8% to £44.7bn in 2020 - up from 2.6% growth last year - as the sector benefits from changing shopper behaviour during the coronavirus outbreak.
• Walmart plans to add 1,200 Shopify sellers to its Marketplace this year as it looks to capitalize on a surge in ecommerce shopping amid the coronavirus pandemic.
• 17.2 million UK consumers say they will now switch permanently to online shopping, which is forecast to generate an additional £4.5 billion of UK online sales in 2020.
• Mastercard highlighted that online shopping gained traction in the UAE, with 54% of UAE consumers expecting online shopping trend to continue post-Covid19, and that users were moving away from cash payments.
• While the coronavirus pandemic has brought about a behavioral shift among shoppers - a Nielsen survey suggests 93% of consumers around the world will now consider buying online - the global economic recession is clouding the outlook for cross-border e-commerce businesses.
• By the end of 2023 Ocado plans another 100 stores across Britain, creating 4,000 more jobs, and bringing its total number of shops to 1,000.
• Chinese e-commerce sales reached USD 750 billion in 2016, stemming from 460 million online shoppers, and predicts a CAGR of 23% in 2020 almost triple that of offline sales.
• In China, retail e-commerce sales in 2018 were almost USD 600 billion, carried out by over 650 million Chinese online shoppers, a number expected to reach almost 800 million by 2020.
• In China, where the number of online shoppers is expected to reach 798.8 million by 2020 of which almost 42% use mobile devices for payment, lawmakers have been overhauling internet law, and its efforts reveal innovative methods and criteria deserve closer observation.
• Facebook's new Shops platform has the potential to pose a real threat to Amazon in the coming years.
• Affirm and Shopify will begin testing in the coming months, with Shop Pay Installments expected to be made available to eligible US merchants starting later in 2020.
• By 2022, voice shopping is expected to jump to $40 billion in the US and by $5 Billion in the UK.
• The first of Kroger's robot warehouses is not even scheduled to open until early 2021, so there is time for grocers and shoppers to figure out any new preferences to grocery shopping.
• Social Shopping: With the growing influence of social media, in 2020 will mark a crucial tipping point for social commerce as a prominent channel for online shopping.
• Department stores: Following months of store closures, growth will further decline from initial predictions of -1.1% to -17.8%, to an estimated £12.9bn in 2020, as shoppers are expected to continue to shop online despite stores reopening.
• As a consequence of Covid-19, Chinese shoppers might drive a majority of sales as soon as this year, as they start to buy again while western consumers retrench.
• Retail stores may take a big hit: 100,000 locations could close by 2025 - a trend accelerated by the COVID-19 outbreak - if more Americans opt for online shopping.
• There is strong potential for consumers, previously cautious around online shopping, to gain confidence and retain a higher proportion of spending online after the crisis, which will drive increased demand for 'last touch' logistics in particular.
• With global e-commerce sales set to reach $4.1 trillion next year, the significance of social shopping forecasted to rise and mobile transactions set to dominate 73% of all online sales in 2021, the user journey is paramount.
• COVID-19 has undeniably accelerated the growth of online grocery shopping across all age demographics, with 50% of all American consumers projected to have tried online grocery by the end of 2020.

Last updated: 04 October 2020