U.S. e-commerce sales fell 1% year-on-year in the second quarter, the first negative growth in a decade

It is learned that according to the latest data released by Salesforce, in the second quarter of 2023, US online sales fell 1% year-on-year, marking the first quarterly negative growth in nearly a decade.

Salesforce's analysis shows that the decline in sales may be related to the inflation faced by American shoppers. Inflation has caused the price of items to soar, and even an 11% increase in discounts will not help. In addition, the number of online orders in the second quarter fell 4% year-on-year, the largest drop in nearly five quarters, which is also one of the reasons for the negative growth in sales.

Although sales and order volume declined, Salesforce data showed that the average online order value in the second quarter increased 3% year-on-year to $124.45. In addition, even with the consumption downgrade, online traffic still increased by 2% year-on-year. Salesforce attributed this to consumers buying a lot of bargains.

Notably, the proportion of online orders from repeat customers increased 5% year-over-year during the quarter, accounting for 39% of all orders.

Other data

• Online discount rates in the second quarter of 2023 increased by 12% compared to the second quarter of 2022 and increased by 19% compared to the same period in 2021.

• Online marketing messaging grew 6% in the second quarter of 2023, a sharp drop from 28% in the second quarter of 2022. The biggest deceleration was in email marketing, which grew just 3% compared to 21% in the same period of 2022. Mobile messaging saw big growth in the quarter, up 28% year over year, according to Salesforce.

• Despite the drop in messages sent, the open rate for messages remained stable at 21% this quarter, while the click-through rate remained the same at 0.7%.

Recommendations for the second half of 2023

Salesforce recommends that online retailers focus their promotions on offering customers deals and timely messaging, while also doing a good job of omnichannel marketing. Salesforce noted that Prime Day 2023 sales results showed that shoppers would first look for bargains online and then wait until they were discounted or reduced in price before buying.

For the rest of the year, Salesforce recommends that retailers focus their retail strategies on promotions, customer engagement, and building relationships with their most loyal shoppers.

“Strong macroeconomic headwinds continue to put downward pressure on consumers around the world to spend more cautiously and save more, which is likely to affect the retail industry in 2023,” Caila Schwartz, director of consumer strategy and insights at Salesforce, said in a company blog post.

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