Cart abandonment rates have been climbing steadily since 2014, after reaching an all-time high in 2013. In 2023, the share of online shopping carts that is being abandoned reached 70 percent for the first time since 2013. This is an increase of more than 10 percentage points compared to the start of the time period considered here. Mobiles vs. desktops When global consumers shop online, they spend considerably more when doing so on desktop computers. In December 2023, the average value of e-commerce purchases made through desktops was approximately 159 U.S. dollars. Purchases completed on mobiles and tablets were of comparable values, ranging between 100 and 105 U.S. dollars. Even though consumers spent more when conducting their shopping on computers, they were more inclined to add products to their shopping carts when using mobile devices. Ultimately, mobile devices provide a convenient and more accessible way to shop, but desktop computers remain the preferred choice for more expensive purchases. Where do consumers shop online? Across the globe, digital marketplaces are shoppers’ number-one online shopping destination. As of April 2024, some 29 percent of consumers voted marketplaces as their favorite e-commerce channel, followed by physical stores and retailer sites. Looking at which retailers’ global shoppers prefer to shop at, amazon.com emerged as the world's most popular online marketplace, based on share of visits. The U.S. portal accounted for around one-fifth of the global online marketplace's traffic in December 2023. Amazon's German and Japanese portal sites ranked third and fifth among the leading online marketplaces, further demonstrating Amazon's dominance over the market.

Online conversion rates of e-commerce sites were the highest in the food & beverage sector, at 3.1 percent in the fourth quarter of 2024. Beauty & skincare followed, with a three percent conversion rate. For comparison, the average conversion rate of e-commerce sites across all selected sectors stood at just over two percent. How does conversion vary by region and device? The conversion rate, which indicates the proportion of visits to e-commerce websites that result in purchases, varies by country and region. For instance, since at least 2023, e-commerce sites have consistently recorded higher conversion rates among shoppers in Great Britain compared to those in the United States and other global regions. Furthermore, despite the increasing prevalence of mobile shopping worldwide, conversions remain more pronounced on larger screens such as tablets and desktops. Online shopping cart abandonment on the rise Recently, the rate at which consumers abandon their online shopping carts has been gradually rising to more than 70 percent in 2024, showing a higher difficulty for e-commerce sites to convert website traffic into purchases. By the end of that year, food and beverage was one of the product categories with the lowest online cart abandonment rate, confirming the sector’s relatively high conversion rate. In the United States, the primary reason why customers abandoned their shopping carts is that extra costs such as shipping, tax, and service fees were too high at checkout.

Mobile phones dominate global digital commerce website visits and contribute to the largest share of online orders. As of the fourth quarter of 2024, smartphones constituted around 78 percent of retail site traffic globally, responsible for generating 68 percent of online shopping orders. Marketplace momentum Retail e-commerce has significantly increased globally over the past few years. Currently, the leading countries in retail e-commerce growth, such as the Philippines, have seen an increase of up to 24 percent. In 2024, the majority of online purchases worldwide were made on online marketplaces, incurring around a 30 percent share of consumer purchases. The top four retail websites for consumers to visit globally were all marketplaces, with the leading website being Amazon.com. Converting clicks When shopping online, website visits often do not end in purchases. This can be due to having second thoughts when online shopping, or simply due to consumers using the platforms to search for products. In 2024, the conversion rate of online shoppers globally was just over two percent, with food and beverages incurring the highest conversion rate from online purchases. Across the globe, almost 20 percent of all retail sales were conducted online. This figure is forecast to increase to at least 21 percent by 2027.

In the fourth quarter of 2024, online shoppers spent an average of about 2.98 U.S. dollars per visit across all verticals. Electronics is the category in which consumers spent the most money per visit on average, at 3.32 U.S. dollars, followed by luxury apparel at 3.10 dollars. Nickels and dimes Over the past few years, the average order value for e-commerce purchases has increased globally, from around 118 U.S. dollars in September 2022 to around 126 U.S. dollars in the same month of 2023. The average order value also depends heavily on the online traffic source consumers use. In 2023, the value per order value was the highest when navigating directly, averaging around 167 dollars. Direct navigation means searching for a website directly in the browser's address bar, bypassing the use of search engines. Orders placed from social media stores were the lowest in value, with an average of less than 110 dollars. Mobile shopping on the rise Online shoppers have clear preferences when it comes to device type. When comparing gadgets, the average purchase amount has always been the highest for desktops, with an order value of 160 U.S. dollars. This indicates that bigger purchases are made via desktop computers. However, consumers are more likely to complete orders when shopping on mobile devices. Mobile devices were also clearly preferred when browsing retail websites, with around three-fourths of consumers using smartphones instead of desktops or tablets.

As of April 2024, almost 32 percent of global Instagram audiences were aged between 18 and 24 years, and 30.6 percent of users were aged between 25 and 34 years. Overall, 16 percent of users belonged to the 35 to 44 year age group. Instagram users With roughly one billion monthly active users, Instagram belongs to the most popular social networks worldwide. The social photo sharing app is especially popular in India and in the United States, which have respectively 362.9 million and 169.7 million Instagram users each. Instagram features One of the most popular features of Instagram is Stories. Users can post photos and videos to their Stories stream and the content is live for others to view for 24 hours before it disappears. In January 2019, the company reported that there were 500 million daily active Instagram Stories users. Instagram Stories directly competes with Snapchat, another photo sharing app that initially became famous due to it’s “vanishing photos” feature. As of the second quarter of 2021, Snapchat had 293 million daily active users.

As of April 2024, around 16.5 percent of global active Instagram users were men between the ages of 18 and 24 years. More than half of the global Instagram population worldwide was aged 34 years or younger. Teens and social media As one of the biggest social networks worldwide, Instagram is especially popular with teenagers. As of fall 2020, the photo-sharing app ranked third in terms of preferred social network among teenagers in the United States, second to Snapchat and TikTok. Instagram was one of the most influential advertising channels among female Gen Z users when making purchasing decisions. Teens report feeling more confident, popular, and better about themselves when using social media, and less lonely, depressed and anxious. Social media can have negative effects on teens, which is also much more pronounced on those with low emotional well-being. It was found that 35 percent of teenagers with low social-emotional well-being reported to have experienced cyber bullying when using social media, while in comparison only five percent of teenagers with high social-emotional well-being stated the same. As such, social media can have a big impact on already fragile states of mind.

In 2024, global retail e-commerce sales reached an estimated six trillion U.S. dollars. Projections indicate a 31 percent growth in this figure over the coming years, with expectations to come close to eight trillion dollars by 2028. World players Among the key players on the world stage, the American marketplace giant Amazon holds the title of the largest e-commerce player globally, with a gross merchandise value of nearly 800 billion U.S. dollars in 2024. Amazon was also the most valuable retail brand globally, followed by mostly American competitors such as Walmart and the Home Depot. Leading e-tailing regions E-commerce is a dormant channel globally, but nowhere has it been as successful as in Asia. In 2024, the e-commerce revenue in that continent alone was measured at nearly two trillion U.S. dollars, outperforming the Americas and Europe. That year, the up-and-coming e-commerce markets also centered around Asia. The Philippines and India stood out as the swiftest-growing e-commerce markets based on online sales, anticipating a growth rate surpassing 20 percent.

During the fourth quarter of 2024, 3.1 percent of visits to e-commerce websites in the UK converted to purchases. In Switzerland, online shopper conversion rates stood at 2.9 percent. Mobile takes over e-shopping Online shopping has long since established itself as an everyday activity of online life – this holds for both desktop and mobile. As of the third quarter of 2024, more than three-quarters of retail site visits worldwide came from smartphones and generated about two-thirds of online shopping orders. Based on mobile retail performance growth, it is only a matter of time before mobile overtakes desktop in revenue generation.