Yottaa, Inc., the leading cloud platform for accelerating eCommerce, today announced the publication of key findings from a new eCommerce survey titled, “2022 eCommerce Executive Key Initiatives Survey Report.” The objective of the research was to gather data from online retail executives to identify their key eCommerce initiatives for 2022.
The 2022 eCommerce Executive Key Initiatives Survey Report examines online retail trends based on feedback from some of the biggest brands in the industry. The report contains data from questions answered by 128 executives from leading eCommerce brands across a wide range of vertical markets. Although this year the majority of respondents were from brands generating greater than $200M in online revenue annually, over 40% of respondents represent smaller brands. The research was collected both online and via telephone during February of 2022.
Key Findings
- Top Focus for 2022 – Online Revenue Growth: More than half of survey respondents said their brands experienced online revenue growth of between 26% and 50% in 2021. 87% of brands are looking for year-over-year increases in conversion rates of between 5% and 15% in 2022.
- Other Top eCommerce Initiatives: Include maximizing return on eCommerce technology investments (56%), optimizing shoppers’ digital experiences (48%), and decreasing page load times (47%).
- Top Investment Areas: Brands are investing more in customer acquisition, data security, improving site speed, and site analytics.
- Significant Customer Acquisition Investments: More than 79% of brands are investing 25% to 50% more in customer acquisition than in previous years. That’s an increase of $125,000 per month for the average brand. Survey respondents stated they are planning to spend between $300K and $450K per month on customer acquisition.
- Brands Are Beefing Up Online Security: One of the top eCommerce investment areas is data security/privacy. Why? 60% of online shoppers say they won’t do business with a brand that has experienced a data breach in the past 12 months.
- Large Retail Brands Are Doubling Down: The eCommerce heavy hitters are spending money to make money in 2022. The focus is on investing in digital experience and maximizing online ROI. 72% of large retailers will increase their investment in eCommerce initiatives by 25% or more in 2022.
- Fast Site Speed Is Crucial To Growth: Over 86% of respondents acknowledge that site speed is one of the most important factors in eCommerce success. This is a big change from 2021 when 53% of brands were unaware that over 50% of shoppers will leave a site that takes longer than 3 seconds to load. Improving site speed by just 1 second can increase conversion rates by 5.7% and reduce bounce rates by 12.2%.
- Amazon: Has the King Been Dethroned? In 2021, 33% of respondents to this survey viewed Amazon as a competitor. Fast forward 12 months, and only 11% of brands view the retail giant as a competitive threat. What changed? 57% feel that recent innovation and investments in eCommerce sites and digital experience have levelled the playing field for brands to compete with Amazon.
- To Re-Platform Or Not To Re-Platform: 43% of respondents stated that their brands are re-platforming. Where are they going? The top five choices are Salesforce Commerce Cloud, Netsuite, Oracle Commerce Cloud, SAP Hybris, and Shopify Plus.
“After the unprecedented, explosive growth of 2020 and 2021, online brands are squarely focused on continuing growth in 2022,” said Rich Stendardo, CEO of Yottaa. “Now in its fifth year of publication, the annual eCommerce Executive Key Initiatives Survey Report provides a roadmap for online growth in 2022 through direct insight from some of the industry’s biggest brands. The key initiatives outlined in this report, from increasing customer acquisition spend to improving page load speeds, will help all online brands achieve their growth goals in the next 12 months.”
