Online commerce in Spain has experienced a growth in sales of 14% during the third quarter of the year, three points above the global average, with respect to the same period of the previous year. These data represent a slight improvement compared to the previous quarter, in which growth in our country was 7%, while at the world level it was then 3%. It is one of the main conclusions of the quarterly study of Salesforce Shopping Index, which analyzes the behavior of 1 billion online shoppers in 54 countries around the world.
The figures for Spain too exceed the world average in terms of traffic to ecommerce websites and the number of orders. Both variables experienced drops of 2% year-on-year in all the countries included in the study, while in our country, both grew by 8% compared to the third quarter of 2020.
As for the favorite devices to buy items on the Internet, mobile phones are still the star for Spaniards, accounting for 77% of traffic to online stores (compared to 72% overall) and the medium used being to carry out 64% of the orders (versus 61% overall).
Down in average spending and conversion
There are two variables in which Spain, together with Italy, presents the lowest data in the study: the average expenditure per buyer and visit is at $ 1, when the global average is at $ 2.80, and the conversion rate is 1.2% (well below 2.4% overall). The average value of orders in our country is also below the global figure, with 76.91 dollars in Spain compared to 103.43 worldwide.
The study also reveals a high rate of cart abandonment (that is, unfinished purchases) in our country: 91% in the case of mobile purchases and 84% if we do it from the computer. These percentages are notably higher than the global average, with abandonment rates of 86% on mobiles and 77% on computers.
Regarding the product categories, the ones that grew the most in this quarter globally are:
- Furniture (59%)
- Bags and suitcases (37%)
- Luxury bags (30%)
In contrast, the categories experiencing the largest declines worldwide are:
- Beauty and hair (-36%)
- Food and drink (-21%)
- Beauty and makeup (-19%)
