Don’t get left behind… Here’s how consumers are shopping online in 2016

A contribution of our partner eCommerce EXPO

After the digital demise of retail giant BHS, it’s vital you meet the needs of today’s digital shoppers. As for the first time in history, more shoppers are choosing to purchase online than in store. So, here’s how consumers are shopping online in 2016.

Pepper.com, the global social commerce network that includes HotUKDeals in the UK, has analysed Similar Web data to reveal how consumers shopped online in the second quarter of 2016, unveiling how retailers have changed in terms of their growth compared to Q1 and how consumers accessed these merchants.

Danny Munday, General Manager for Pepper.com UK (HotUKDeals) said: “The increase in traffic to websites like B&Q (DIY.com), Homebase and Screwfix could be accounted to the sales they have around bank holiday weekends, such as early May, when people are often making home improvements.

Traffic may seem lower for some sites due to the fact that a lot of shopping would have been done during Q1 and the January sales.”

Key takeaways include:

• The majority of traffic still comes from mobile;
• Only 2.5% of visits came from social media;
• When shopping online, 41.05% of consumers browse directly to their preferred online retailer.
• The top 25 online shopping websites in the first half of 2016 according to Similar Web:
• British consumers made 7.2bn visits to the top 25 online retailers in the first half of 2016. Amazon.co.uk and eBay.co.uk continue to lead the table of the most popular internet retailers as consumers continue to favour outlets that sell a wide-range of products.
• 3.5bn visits were made to the top 25 online retailers in Q2 2016 compared to 3.6bn in Q1 (down 3.77 percent). As well as the total number of visits, the number of visits made to Amazon.co.uk and eBay.co.uk also reduced in Q2 2016. Visits to Amazon.co.uk in Q2 2016 dropped 3.02 percent compared to Q1 with 1.1bn visits (in Q1 they recorded 1.2bn). eBay.co.uk lost 1.84 percent of visits in Q2 compared to the first three months of 2016 recording 1.1bn visits in Q2.
• Out of the 25 most popular online retailers, only six recorded an increase in the number of visits compared to Q1 2016. Homebase.co.uk recorded the highest increase with visits up 12.46 percent on Q1 2016, followed by hm.com (up 11.01 percent), Asos.com (up 7.29 percent), DIY.com (up 6.03 percent), Screwfix.com (up 3.36 percent) and houseoffraser.co.uk (up 0.30 percent).

How traffic developed from Q1/2016 to Q2/2016:

In the first half of 2016, most visits to the top 25 online retailers came via mobile (3.8bn visits). In Q2, 1.8bn visits were made via mobile, with the traffic share down 2.02 percent compared to Q1. The share of traffic from desktop was up 2.02 percent in Q2 2016 compared to Q1, with 1.7bn visits made via PC’s and laptops.

Like Q1 2016, Very.co.uk recorded the highest share of traffic from mobile in Q2 2016 with 68.91 percent (20.6m visits), which is down 3.14 percent. Ebuyer.com, again recorded the highest share of traffic from desktop in Q2 2016 with 67.12 percent (11.6m visits), which is up 4.63 percent on Q1.

The pages which have contributed most significantly to the Top-25 online retailers reach in 2016:

Looking at a combination of traffic from all sources such as referrals, paid searches and social media, most visits to the top 25 online retailers in Q2 2016 came from Google with over 1.1bn visits coming from the search engine giant (31.54 percent traffic share). This traffic share is up 1.25 percent compared to Q1 2016. In Q2 2016, Facebook was the second most significant website that generated traffic to the top 25 online retailers with the social media giant contributing 50m visits (1.42 percent traffic share).

The most relevant traffic sources in the first half of 2016:

More visits came from paid searches in Q2 2016 which accounted for a 4.16 percent traffic share (146m visits) compared to 3.68 percent in Q1 (134m visits) with the likes of Currys (15.84 percent share / 6.5m visits), John Lewis (13.55 percent share / 7.6m visits) and Screwfix (13.02 percent / 4.6m visits) needing to pay for large parts of their reach.

The second highest source of visits in Q2 2016 came from organic searches, which contributed 1.02bn visits (29.18 percent share), which is slightly down from 1.05bn visits in Q1 (28.90 percent share). Referrals from third party websites, such as HotUKDeals and Audible for example, are still the third most relevant traffic source, accounting for 682m visits (19.43 percent share), down from 710m in Q1 (19.45 percent share).

Like Q1 2016, direct type-ins have been the most important source of traffic to the top 25 online retailers for Q2 2016, with 1.4bn visits (41.05 percent share) coming from people entering the URL of their favourite retailers (down from 1.6bn visits in Q1), with merchants such as Ebuyer.com, eBay.co.uk and Amazon.co.uk benefitting from their high brand-awareness and loyal consumer base. In Q2 2016, Ebuyer.com recorded the highest share of traffic from direct type-ins with 52.69 percent (9m visits), replacing eBay.co.uk who dropped to second place in Q2 2016 with a 48.68 percent traffic share (526m visits). Amazon recorded the third highest share of traffic from direct type-ins with 43.43 percent (494m visits).

The traffic share from social media to the top 25 online retailers in Q2 2016 was down 0.12 per cent on Q1 2016 with traffic from social media contributing 89m visits (down from 97m in Q1).

Like Q1 2016, Etsy.com received the highest share of visits from social media platforms with a 10.48 percent share of traffic (3.7m visits) coming from sites such as Pinterest and Twitter. Asos jumped up one place from Q1 2016 receiving the second highest share of visits from social media platforms (4.63 percent share / 8.3m visits), followed by Sports Direct (3.54 percent share / 2.1m visits).

Traffic from mail sources, such as newsletters, accounted for 111m visits in Q2 2016 (3.17 percent share), which is actually 0.71 percent more than Q1 in terms of traffic share, but is still a low number in comparison to direct type-ins and referrals for example. Display ads are still at the bottom of the table, with just 0.47 percent of traffic coming from this type of marketing with 16.5m visits, although this is up from 8.5m visits in Q1 2016 (0.23 percent traffic share).

In Q2 2016, New Look had the most success with display ads with a 2.54 percent share of traffic (982,987 visits), followed by Tesco with 2.39 percent (2.5m visits) and House of Fraser with 2.23 percent (521,907 visits). Like Q1 2016, Groupon had the highest success rate for traffic from mail, such as newsletters, with a 27.1 percent share (10.9m visits).

The most relevant social networks for British online retailers in Q2 2016:

Like Q1 2016, Facebook is still the most relevant social media network in terms of generating traffic to the top 25 online retailers in Q2 2016 with a 55.75 per cent traffic share (50m visits). This is followed by YouTube (18.5m visits – 20.78 percent share) and Reddit (8.39 percent share – 7.5m visits). Twitter and Pinterest make up the fourth and fifth most relevant social networks.

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