In other words, if Amazon is holding a sales event, so are other online retailers. Furthermore, if Amazon is holding a sales event, consumers are shopping — whether on Amazon or elsewhere — to capitalize on promotions.

Amazon is No. 1 in the Top 1000, Digital Commerce 360’s database of North America’s largest online retailers based on web sales. It’s also No. 3 in the Global Online Marketplaces database, which ranks the 100 largest global marketplaces. Digital Commerce 360 projects Amazon’s total web sales in 2024 will reach $469.01 billion.

As one of the largest online merchants on the planet, its decisions — such as when to hold promotions — affect the entire ecommerce industry.

How much did consumers spend on the first of Amazon’s Prime Days in 2024?

U.S. consumers spent $7.2 billion on July 16, the first of Amazon’s 48-hour Prime Day 2024 sales event, according to Adobe Analytics. But that’s not just sales on Amazon.com. Adobe’s analysis is based on 100 million stock keeping units (SKUs) across 18 product categories and covers more than 1 trillion visits to U.S. retail sites.

That $7.2 billion represents 11.7% year-over-year growth and marks the single-largest ecommerce spending day of 2024 yet, according to Adobe data. It also substantiates the likening of Prime Day to “Black Friday in July,” as some retailers offered promotions using the marketing term that overlap with — or directly compete against — Amazon’s sales event.

200 online retailers in the Top 1000 use Adobe Analytics for their web analytics, and 97 use it for site design and development. Top 1000 online retailers also use it for content delivery and management, as an ecommerce platform, a marketing platform, for personalization and more.

Trending spending habits

Moreover, the first 24 hours of Amazon’s Prime Day 2024 event also marked the biggest mobile shopping day of the year so far, Adobe said. The Amazon Prime Day effect contributed to $3.5 billion in mobile spending on July 16, which is 49.3% of sales, nearly equal to desktop shopping.

Specific categories drove the sales, Adobe data shows. Electronics sales as a whole increased 33% compared to average daily sales in June 2024, Adobe said. Across specific products, headphones and Bluetooth speakers saw the largest sales growth at 164%, followed by:

• Televisions (up 83%)
• Fitness trackers (81%)
• Tablets (71%)
• E-readers (65%)
• Computers (64%)

Consumers used curbside pickup for 18% of online orders from online retailers that offer the service. That represents a decrease from 20% for the same period last year, Adobe said.

Buy now, pay later (BNPL) accounted for 7.5% of online orders in the first 24 hours of the Prime Day 2024 event. That represents $540 in revenue, which is a 17.1% year-over-year increase, according to Adobe.

“Steep discounting has been the story of e-commerce so far this year, as consumers look to get the most value out of their dollar,” said Vivek Pandya, lead analyst at Adobe Digital Insights, in a statement. “It is driving up demand for major categories like electronics and apparel, which have seen more modest growth in recent months, while also capturing back-to-school shoppers at just the right moment.”

What is the Amazon Prime Day effect?

Prime Day creates a small “halo effect” for North American retailers, as Salesforce puts it. Online sales growth in North America hit 3% year over year in the first 24 hours of Prime Day, according to the platform provider, based on the activity of 1.5 billion shoppers across Salesforce Commerce Cloud and other Salesforce products. Its results encompass retailers and brands outside of Amazon, it said. Web traffic to North American online retailers grew 4% year over year.

In North America, 76 of the top 2000 online retailers use Salesforce as their ecommerce platform, according to Digital Commerce 360 data. And in 2023, those 76 online retailers combined for more than $136.077 billion in web sales.

In the U.S., specifically, online sales grew 3% year over year during the first day of the event. For Canada, that was 4% growth over the same period. Meanwhile, web traffic to online retailers grew 4% in the U.S. and 6% in Canada.

Globally, year-over-year sales during the first 24 hours of the Prime Day event were flat for retailers other than Amazon, Salesforce said. However, global web traffic to Salesforce-powered online retailers grew 2% year over year for the first 24 hours.

Salesforce also broke out which categories had the largest sales growth and discounts during the first 24 hours of the 2024 Prime Day event.

Top-performing verticals by sales growth

1. Health & Beauty (23% increase)
2. Active Footwear (10%)
3. General Handbags (12%)

Highest discounts globally by category

1. General Apparel  (average discount of 28%)
2. Beauty & Makeup (26%)
3. Home & Furniture (24%)

Global discounts grew 10% year over year during the first 24 hours of the Prime Day event, Salesforce said. The average discount rate across categories was 20%.

Highest discounts by category in the US

1. General Apparel (average discount of 33%)
2. Home Goods, which includes dining, furniture and art (23%)
3. Health & Beauty (20%)

Discounts from U.S. online retailers grew 13% year over year during the same period, according to Salesforce. The average discount rate across categories was 22%. For online retailers in Canada, those figures are 8% and 27%, respectively.

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Having one-to-one fan engagement on Funko.com “has been super successful and incredibly important” to the retailer, Smiley told Digital Commerce 360 at the Salesforce Connections 2024 conference in Chicago. Funko leverages that engagement when new releases appear in its product drops.

“Product drops are obviously a giant part of our strategy, especially on the DTC side,” he said, adding that Funko also benefits from an updated technology stack that can accommodate those sales.

Funko has grown its DTC sales via its “Pop! Yourself” figures. | Image credit: Funko

Funko began its DTC sales in 2017, Smiley said. He estimates that today, a quarter of Funko sales are DTC, and the current trend indicates that’s only growing.

Its previous platform provider, which Smiley did not name, was “falling down” during product drops. The site’s previous platform couldn’t handle the traffic it currently does, and bots would buy all the product, he said. That became the discourse about Funko DTC sales on social channels, he added.

Smiley said Funko has “completely flipped that narrative” about its site since switching to Salesforce as its platform. At some points, Smiley said, Funko now does 12,000 orders a minute on the same product.

In North America, 76 of the top 2000 online retailers use Salesforce as their ecommerce platform, according to Digital Commerce 360 data. In 2022, those 76 online retailers combined for more than $116.97 billion in web sales.

Funko DTC sales on the rise

Before Funko began offering product drops on its own website, its sales strategy was largely tied to large retailers like Walmart, Target and Hot Topic. Each large retailer would sell exclusive Funko figures. Other parts of its strategy, Smiley said, included leaning into its base of anime fans as well as the Star Wars, Marvel and Disney franchises.

And whereas these figures capture specific fandoms, Funko has also grown its DTC sales via its “Pop! Yourself” figures. The figures are customized so consumers can have Funko figures that look like them.

“We had it in our brick-and-mortar stores but put it online last year and that has gone gangbuster,” Smiley said. “Super popular, super giftable. During the holidays, we could not keep up with demand. We’re continuing to see that trend through Valentine’s and Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, graduation.”

Funko’s collectibles, which feature characters from licensed media properties

In addition to Funko.com, Funko also operates Loungefly.com (accessible from the main Funko website), FunkoEurope.com and MondoShop.com. But the former accounts for “the bulk of” Funko DTC sales, he said.

Not including the Pop! Yourself figures, Funko has created and sold 32,155 unique figures and counting, Smiley said.

First-party shopper data

As a result of its Pop! Yourself figures, Funko saw “massive growth” in its fourth-quarter DTC sales in 2023, Smiley said.

“We were not necessarily a Q4 brand like many other retailers were because of our conventions,” Smiley said. “Summer was always our biggest season. The holidays started to — maybe by and large because of Pop! Yourself — become a competitive time of the year compared to the conventions as well.”

Because the Pop! Yourself figures come directly from Funko, it benefits from acquiring first-party shopper data.

Smiley said there’s “no real good way to” track Funko customers who aren’t buying DTC. Instead, the retailers like Walmart and Target that make the sale will give less-specific sales data to Funko.

“They won’t give you personalized [data] because those are their shoppers,” Smiley said. “They’ll give you the aggregate on how products are selling through, but they won’t give you any personal data.”

One way Funko plans to work around that is by rolling out an improved “verified” program.

“Basically, it’d be like a QR code on the boxes that you can scan and it’ll tell you where you bought it and register your product,” Smiley said. “Right now, we talk about those drops we’ve done for other retailers and it’s just kind of a sticker. This will allow a little bit more tracking and that sort of thing. We’ll use that as a funnel to get people into the site.”

Bots and product drops

Among the biggest product drops Funko has done was a figure of now-retired NFL player Jason Kelce. There was a moment in the 2023 playoffs when was in the stands for his brother, Travis. Jason ripped off his shirt and was flexing in the stands. Funko “had that to market within a week,” Smiley said.

“It was a preorder drop, so we were able to capture the moment, design it, and get it out on the site for preorder capability within the week,” Smiley said. “They weren’t delivered within that week, but they were able to be purchased at that time.”

Smiley said the fastest he has seen a Funko figure sell out was in a minute, at a Comic Con event. Funko would reveal the product the day before, and it would sell out nearly instantly upon being dropped.

And those sold-out Funko figures are prime targets for resale.

“We’re constantly working to remove the bots from our system because the bots are the flippers, essentially,” Smiley said, adding that it takes “a lot of time and effort. It’s multifaceted. It’s partnering with Salesforce. We use Cloudflare for a lot of that security. It’s just refining and refining and refining these rules, and it’s a delicate balance because if you go too hard, you could be limiting real shoppers.”

That refining includes looking for bad actors, partially by identifying IP traffic and how many times bots are “trying to hit the site.”

At the same time, he said, Funko doesn’t want to “make it a super cumbersome experience where you have to identify all the traffic lights on the thing and do 10 steps to prove you’re a real shopper.” By that point, products might be sold out.

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Retail brands including — but not limited to — True Classic and Caden Lane will join Target Plus. In a June 24 statement, Target said it will also be “the first mass retailer to work with Shopify to bring select merchants’ products into its physical stores in the months to come, offering shoppers even more new brands to discover.”

Target is No. 5 in the Top 1000. The database is Digital Commerce 360’s ranking of North America’s online retailers by web sales. Digital Commerce 360 categorizes Target as a Mass Merchant.

In North America, 117 of the Top 1000 online retailers use Shopify as their ecommerce platform. In 2023, those 117 online retailers combined for more than $9.72 billion in web sales.

Target Plus and Shopify partnership

U.S.-based Shopify merchants can apply to sell on Target Plus through Marketplace Connect, Target said in the statement. Marketplace Connect is an app that allows merchants to sell and manage orders they receive from online marketplaces.

“Target Plus invites consumers to explore a curated collection of products from vendors we trust, so they can shop our assortment with confidence,” said Cara Sylvester, executive vice president and chief guest experience officer at Target, in the statement. “Our partnership with Shopify extends the breadth of thoughtfully designed and affordable items available to discover and enjoy as part of Target’s distinctive mix of brands shoppers love.”

Shopify president Harley Finkelstein said partnering with Target Plus “helps high-growth brands” reach millions of new customers.

“It’s table stakes for merchants to be everywhere customers are,” Finkelstein said in the statement.

Target exec’s view on retail marketplaces

The retailer also released a Q&A about Target Plus with its chief digital and product officer, Prat Vemana.

Prat Vemana, chief digital and product officer at Target, speaks about Target Plus online marketplace

“Make no mistake,” Vemana said. “We’re all-in on Target Plus. In the past year, we’ve more than doubled the number of partners and products hosted there, and new partnerships like our latest with Shopify will help it continue to grow.”

He said Target Plus is “a win-win-win for everyone involved.” That refers to consumers, the merchants selling on the Target Plus marketplace, as well as Target and Shopify. Vemana cited a report from industry market research company eMarketer. In it, eMarketer said, “retail marketplaces are expected to account for more than 30% of all e-commerce growth in the next three years.”

“That growth will continue through our new partnership with Shopify, which brings the opportunity for more U.S.-based partners to apply to be part of Target Plus,” Vemana said.

“Digital marketplaces are industry game-changers because they enable retailers to give consumers a lot more choices without having to store those products,” Vemana said.

He added that many retailers created digital marketplaces to offer shoppers “anything they might need.”

What is the Target Plus online marketplace?

Target Plus is an online marketplace that Target Corp. launched in 2019. It’s invite-only, and it’s a third-party marketplace, meaning merchants other than Target sell on it. Consumers can shop Target Plus via Target.com and the Target mobile app.

Today, the company said, the Target Plus marketplace features more than 2 million products from more than 1,200 retail partners. Those brands range from home and sporting goods to apparel, Target said. They include such retailers as Crocs, Timberland, Ruggable and Maui Jim. Target chooses which brands it allows to sell on its marketplace.

As with shopping on Target.com, consumers can receive 5% off their Target Plus orders if they use a Target Circle Card. They can also earn free shipping for orders of $35 or more, and they get free returns.

“The retailer’s team of curation experts helps grow its assortment on Target.com quickly by adding trending, premium, direct-to-consumer and national brands,” Target said.

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There, Salesforce announced AI, Data Cloud and Commerce Cloud features and updates for its clients — one of which is Hästens. The 172-year-old bedding brand sells in close to 50 markets around the world, and the United States is its largest, Aschberger said. The two spoke about customer experience, retention, and the Salesforce products Hästens uses.

In North America, 76 of the Top 2000 online retailers use Salesforce as their ecommerce platform, according to Digital Commerce 360 data. In 2022, those 76 online retailers combined for more than $116.97 billion in web sales.

How Hästens addresses customer experience

Customer experience (CX) starts with product discovery, Aschberger said.

Because Hästens beds sell at higher price points than its competitors, Aschberger said, the brand has to make sure it gets customer experience right.

“If I say let’s go outside to the garage and let me show you my car, that’s fine,” Aschberger explained. “If I say come to my home — look at my bed. Experience my bed. It gets a bit weird.”

Garf said he often hears from retailers that personalization plays a key role in customer experience. Store-based retailers have the luxury of associates knowing their customers, Garf said. That differentiates the physical from the digital customer experience even though the retailer has access to purchase history in both scenarios.

Also because of the beds’ high price points, Aschberger said Hästens often closes a store for a couple hours to focus on the one client coming in for a potential sale. Hästens’ goal, he said, is to bring consumers to its stores so they can fully experience the beds and customize one based on a consumer’s preferences and needs. He compares that to other luxury product sales, including product drops that lead to long lines.

“I wonder sometimes what the luxury experience is when you have to queue one hour in the rain outside to be allowed to buy a handbag for $10,000,” Aschberger said.

Repeat buyers and customer retention

Hästens bridges the physical and digital experience gaps by using technology to speed up order configuration. A process that used to take a half hour now takes about 90 seconds, Aschberger said.

“When you say, ‘How do you bring this into a digital world?’ If it’s just a reorder, fine,” Aschberger said. “That’s easy — to do the technology, payment link. You can spend half a million with us in less than 90 seconds if you desire to do so, know exactly what you want and you have the configuration already ready.”

About 40% to 45% of Hästens customers are recurring buyers, he said. Often, these are individuals who bought a second or third home, he added. Because they already have a bed they’re happy with, they just order the same product again.

He said although consumers “can just click” to buy a Hästens bed. But because the retailer’s goal is to drive customers to a store, it has to implement technology further to meet customers’ needs. As a result, Hästens is working to add photorealistic renderings of its designs.

“That is something that gets important in that price segment when you work with interior designers and architects and real estate developers,” he said. “When you have these high-end renderings, from an experience point of view, then having some lousy polygons that shouldn’t present the bed — they don’t cut it.”

What Salesforce technology does Hästens use?

Hästens uses Salesforce’s Commerce, Marketing, Service and Loyalty cloud offerings, Aschberger said. Everything comes together, he added. The data integration is meant to help those who sell Hästens products in physical stores, he said. Hastens uses Salesforce’s Data Cloud to enable that integration between different modules.

“We have a lot of independent resellers,” Aschberger said. “They need information, they need training. It needs to be easy for them to make transactions.”

At the same time the store associates need to plug data into their systems. For Hästens, which has celebrities who buy from it and seek anonymity during their purchase, it’s key that Salesforce helps maintain customers’ data privacy. It comes down to making information available “at the right time, at the right confidentiality level,” he said.

That information requires safeguards. And because Hästens collects a slew of customer data — which can include details like body weight for its bed tests — information such as addresses must be kept confidential.

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The smaller screen size can make it more difficult to find products, so Casio UK and its G-Shock watch website, have been using content personalization and artificial intelligence (AI)-powered search in an effort to boost conversion. So far, it seems to be working.

One way has been through creating a sense of urgency. Casio UK has tested FOMO (fear of missing out) messaging on its website. Monique Green, ecommerce manager at Casio UK, told Digital Commerce 360 that an SKU with less than 10 remaining units for sale will display messages such as “last chance” or “only five left in stock.” This has driven conversion rates up to 18%, according to Casio.

Using technology from Nosto, Casio UK’s website will display how many times a product has been viewed (on its Casio site) or purchased (on its G-Shock website) in the past 24 hours. Nosto is a commerce experience platform (CXP) that offers automation and AI tools to provide insights on ecommerce data.

Casio sells watches, calculators and musical instruments. It has different ecommerce websites for:

• North America
• Latin America
• Europe (including a separate website for the UK and Ireland)
• The Middle East and Africa
• Asia and Oceania

Casio UK taps Nosto for personalization tools

Although Casio sells wholesale, it said it wants to encourage shoppers to buy directly from both its Casio and G-Shock websites. Using a Nosto feature, Casio and G-Shock’s UK websites have achieved a 40% conversion rate on a retention campaign that triggers a pop-up message offering consumers a discount code. The catch is that it appears when a shopper copies and pastes product details to potentially search online for the same product elsewhere.

Danny Power, head of digital at Casio UK, told Digital Commerce 360 that the retailer’s focus “has been on DTC improvements in the past 5 years anyway, to understand the customer more and serve content that fits.”

He added that Casio UK had “a lot” of customers shopping directly on its websites during the pandemic, but that tailed off over the past few years and is building back up toward peak levels.

“Stock was difficult to move to retailers as their warehouses shut, so customers had to come direct during [the COVID-19] pandemic,” Powers said.

Additionally, Green said, Nosto will generate a pop-up on Casio UK’s site suggesting returning visitors pick up where they left off. That pop-up would take consumers to pages they’ve already visited, nudging them to convert.

“If I want to put a banner on the site, that’s a bit different,” she said. “I would go in and manually do that. But a lot of the things like PLP, products gone out of stock, that would drop to the last page. No one wants to see an out-of-stock product they can’t buy. So that’s, I’d say, like 90% just working in the background.”

Product recommendations

Casio UK said it also uses Nosto’s product recommendations feature “to help consumers find the right products quickly.” The retailer said it uses A/B testing to optimize where those recommendations appear across its site. That can include triggering a notification on a product listing page that a newer model of a product is available. This is driving 26% of sales on G-Shock’s UK site and 11% on Casio UK’s.

Green said Casio UK doesn’t have options on its site to save a product for later or to compare it with another product. However, the site shows recently viewed products at the bottom of the page as consumers are browsing.

“So for example, our GA 2100 is our best seller, and we have it in like four different colors,” Green said. “So before, you would only see that product when you clicked on it. Now, when you click on that product, you can see the different colors also on the PDP.”

Improving search functionality

Casio said Nosto’s AI-powered search makes it easier for consumers — especially those on mobile — to find products on its website by entering attributes including color, shape, or product names.

12% of Casio and G-Shock UK’s site visitors use the search bar during their buying journey. But Casio said its “previous search functionality suffered from a lack of advanced product data processing, meaning it couldn’t provide relevant matches to complex queries unless the team spent time manually linking attributes for each product.”

Other technology Casio UK uses

Green said Casio UK also uses Yotpo for user-generated content. Yotpo is a retention marketing platform that retailers can use to produce reviews, text messages, email, subscriptions and more. Casio UK also uses Hotjar, which offers website heatmaps and behavior-analytics tools.

Heat maps are “really useful, especially when you’re trying to see what’s annoying people or bugs,” Green said. “Or if someone’s clicking on something loads and it’s not working, it helps you pick up things on the website. … But because it requires you to go back and watch it, it’s quite time consuming.”

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There are “islands of trapped data,” Salesforce president and chief marketing officer Ariel Kelman said at the main keynote on May 22. And when it comes to using data for AI processes, everything starts with getting it all in one place.

“All of us are struggling with islands of trapped data across the enterprise,” Kelman said. “A lot of us have our core customer data in Salesforce, but a lot of us also have tons of customer data in different places. … If we’re going to have the ability to ground the AI in trusted data, we need to be able to have access to all of it.”

Salesforce president and chief marketing officer Ariel Kelman breaks down the steps that come with using artificial intelligence at an enterprise level at Connections 2024 in Chicago. Image credit: Digital Commerce 360

Salesforce Connections 2024 focuses on data integration

Kelman said this is why Salesforce created Einstein 1. Einstein refers to Salesforce’s platform that allows users to connect their data, customer relationship management and more using artificial intelligence. It takes all of Salesforce’s applications and AI capabilities and brings them together with Data Cloud. It also reaches out to data outside of Salesforce, he said.

“If you’ve done the work to organize your data in a data warehouse like Snowflake or Redshift, great, we can reach out to that data, and it can reside in those systems, but you can use it in Salesforce just like it was a standard object,” Kelman said.

The new AI and Data Cloud features include:

• Einstein Copilot for Merchants
• Einstein Copilot for Marketers
• Einstein Personalization
• Data Cloud

Meanwhile, Commerce Cloud updates include new features for:

• Salesforce Checkout
• Headless commerce capabilities for B2B
• Composable commerce enhancements for B2C
• Digital Engagement enhancements

Salesforce said its shoppable copilot will be generally available to customers starting in June. It will make its marketing copilot generally available in July and its merchant copilot in October, it said.

In North America, 76 of the top 2000 online retailers use Salesforce as their ecommerce platform, according to Digital Commerce 360 data. In 2022, those 76 online retailers combined for more than $116.97 billion in web sales.

Einstein trust layer

The Einstein trust layer is “a single platform that sits underneath every copilot experience you’re going to have,” said Michael Affronti, senior vice president and general manager of Commerce Cloud, at the main keynote on May 22.

Its main goal is to protect customer data, he said. Once a user enters a prompt, he said, Salesforce data masking and security “ensure that none of your raw customer information is ever passed outside your organizational boundary.”

The trust layer also includes a zero-retention policy, Affronti said. That means that once Salesforce software generates a response using a third-party large language model (LLM) such as ChatGPT, “they discard everything that was sent to them. So they never retain or train their models on your obfuscated customer data.”

New Salesforce AI and Data Cloud features

Among the features is a conversational AI tool that Salesforce referred to as a personal shopping assistant.

Salesforce displayed an example of its personal shopping assistant at Connections 2024 as one of the new features in its generative AI suite. Image credit: Salesforce

The tool, which appears on the front end of an ecommerce site, is a chatbot that can take shoppers directly to product detail pages (PDPs) and help them check out.

Salesforce says its Einstein Copilot for Merchants features an AI assistant that helps:

• Optimizes sales
• Guide storefront setup
• Generate personalized promotions
• Build web pages by using natural language prompts

A technology demo Digital Commerce 360 attended showed that the copilot provides insights based on all the data Einstein gathers across Salesforce assets to show merchants which products are selling well, which aren’t, and what actions the merchants can take to address these differences in sales. Those actions include both front-end and back-end changes to merchants’ websites.

The Einstein Copilot for Marketers allows users to include brand guidelines and produce AI-generated content for campaigns. Also on the marketing spectrum, Einstein Personalization uses real-time customer profiles — tied to Data Cloud — to identify consumers’ preferences and recommend digital marketing experiences that drive conversion.

Digital marketing via WhatsApp

Among the digital marketing experiences Salesforce displayed at Connections 2024 is an abandoned cart alert via WhatsApp. A merchant can trigger notifications to consumers via WhatsApp, offering a product that a consumer has viewed on a Salesforce-powered ecommerce platform. The Salesforce marketing software will then send a product recommendation with accompanying text, asking if the consumer would like to buy the product.

An example Salesforce displayed at a May 22 keynote was of a Solo Stove bonfire product. In the example, Solo Stove sends an AI-generated message with a picture of an outdoor bonfire. The consumer can then interact with the generative AI chatbot on WhatsApp. She can send a picture of her patio and ask if the bonfire will fit. The generative AI chatbot can then send an augmented reality (AR) image back to the consumer that displays the bonfire on the patio. From there, the chatbot asks if the consumer would like to buy the product, and she can make a purchase directly from WhatsApp using store credit card information via Salesforce Checkout.

Commerce Cloud updates for B2B and B2C

Among Salesforce’s updates to its Commerce Cloud is an update to Salesforce Checkout. With it, consumers can check out in one click, as Salesforce connects customers’ data using its Einstein 1 Platform. It gives the example that a consumer can purchase an air conditioner from a company’s website. Then, while someone from the company is installing the air conditioner, the customer can pay for the installation using the same checkout experience, with a stored payment method.

Salesforce also announced updates to its composable commerce offering for business-to-consumer (B2C) users. Composable commerce is an approach to ecommerce that allows businesses to combine software from different vendors into a unified website.

“Developers can combine or create templated, composable, and customizable headless approaches to B2C ecommerce site development” using Salesforce APIs (application programming interfaces).

This includes implementing:

• Personalization features on product listing pages (PLPs)
• Sitemap generation
• Store locators
• Buy online, pick up in store (BOPIS)

Developers can pick from these offerings, adding to their ecommerce websites as they see fit.

On the B2B side, developers can implement headless commerce using APIs in Commerce Cloud.

Headless commerce is a type of ecommerce website structure that effectually separates the front end of a website (the user experience) from the back end of a website (the content management system where administrators typically make changes). In doing so, it allows brands to work on the front ends of their websites without going through web developers and IT teams, which often requires filing a service ticket.

“B2B commerce companies can also integrate with hundreds of apps developed by the Salesforce partner ecosystem on AppExchange, to build and scale headless commerce projects in record time with less complexity,” Salesforce says.

Salesforce says it will make the new checkout, composable commerce and headless B2B commerce capabilities available this summer.

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Parentheses indicate the merchant’s ranking in the Top 1000, unless otherwise stated.

More retailers in Digital Commerce 360’s Top 1000 list of leading ecommerce retailers in North America reported ecommerce earnings results for the most recent fiscal quarter.

This week’s ecommerce earnings takeaways

• Some retailers talked about quarter-over-quarter improvement as they found success appealing to consumers who are dealing with inflation. Boot Barn and Canada Goose both mentioned this experience as a promising note going forward.
• Walmart continues to benefit from higher-income consumers turning to its stores and website, with major U.S. ecommerce growth.

Alibaba Group Holding Limited

Q4 2024: Alibaba said it grew revenue 7% year over year in its fiscal fourth quarter ended March 31, 2024. Meanwhile, net income decreased 96% compared to the prior Q4.

Alibaba owns the world’s two largest online marketplaces by gross merchandise value (GMV), Taobao and Tmall. Taobao ranks No. 1 in the Global Online Marketplaces Database, Digital Commerce 360’s ranking of the largest such marketplaces by third-party GMV. Tmall ranks No. 2. Both operate in China.

Read more on Alibaba’s earnings here.

Boot Barn Holdings Inc. (No. 404)

Q4 2024: Boot Barn reported that net sales declined 8.7% to $388.5 million in its fiscal fourth quarter ended March 30. Ecommerce sales declined 7.6%. For the full year, net sales grew 0.6% to $1.67 billion, the retailer said.

Boot Barn’s core customers are still facing persistent inflation, but fourth-quarter trends were meaningfully better than Q3’s, it said.

Canada Goose Holdings Inc. (No. 200)

Q4 2024: Canada Goose said revenue increased 22% to $358.0 million in its fiscal fourth quarter ended March 31. Direct-to-consumer revenue grew 19% due to higher ecommerce sales, it said. Revenue for the full year increased 10% to $1.33 billion. Layoffs of 17% of its workforce in March contributed to cost savings and greater efficiencies, Canada Goose said.

However, even as results improved this quarter, “there’s clearly still some headwinds around consumer spending and specifically consumer luxury spending,” chief financial officer Neil Bowden told investors.

Crocs Inc. (No.97)

Q1 2024: Crocs reported that revenue grew 6% to $939 million in its fiscal first quarter ended March 31. Direct-to-consumer sales, including ecommerce, grew 11.8%, while wholesale grew 3.2%. 

Read more on Crocs earnings here.

The Home Depot Inc. (No. 4)

Q1 2024: Home Depot reported that sales declined 2.3% in its fiscal first quarter of 2024 ended April 28 due to challenges in the broader economy. B2B and Pro sales were equally impacted, while online sales grew.

Read more on Home Depot’s earnings here.

VTEX 

Q1 2024: VTEX reported that revenue grew 24.5% to $42.3 million. The global enterprise digital commerce platform said gross merchandise value (GMV) rose 22.2% to $4.0 billion.

VTEX provides ecommerce platforms for 25 retailers in the Top 1000.

Walmart Inc. (No. 2)

Q1 2025: Walmart grew U.S. online sales 22% for its fiscal 2025 first quarter ended April 30, 2024. Consolidated revenue grew 6.0% to $161.5 billion in Q1.

Read more on Walmart’s earnings here.

Under Armour Inc. (No. 99)

Q4 2024: Under Armour said that total revenue and ecommerce revenue both declined in its fourth quarter of fiscal 2024 ended March 31. Ecommerce sales made up 43% of total DTC sales in the quarter.

Read more on Under Armour’s earnings here.

Other recent ecommerce earnings results

Adidas AG

Q1 2024 earnings: Adidas reported preliminary results for its first quarter ended March 31. Revenue grew 4% year over year to 5.46 billion euros. The latest Yeezy drop generated 150 million euros in revenue and 50 million euros in operating profit in the first quarter, Adidas said. Due to better-than-expected results, the retailer increased its 2024 guidance to expect mid to high single-digit growth.

Adidas ranks No. 16 in the Europe Database, which ranks the largest online retailers in the region.

Allbirds Inc. (No. 395)

Q1 2024: Allbirds said revenue declined 27.6% to $39.3 million in the first quarter ended March 31. That was in line with previous guidance for the quarter, it said.

“The year-over-year decrease is primarily attributable to lower overall demand, as well as the impact of international distributor transitions and retail store closures,” Allbirds said in a press release.

Its strategy going forward is to introduce new products that resonate with customers. Recent launches have performed well, CEO Joe Vernachio said.

Amazon.com Inc. (No. 1)

Q1 2024 earnings: Amazon net sales increased 13% to $143.3 billion in its fiscal first quarter, and its operating income more than tripled.

It ranks No. 1 in the Top 1000, Digital Commerce 360’s ranking of the largest North American online retailers. Amazon is also No. 3 in Digital Commerce 360’s Global Online Marketplaces Database, which ranks the 100 largest such marketplaces by third-party gross merchandise value (GMV).

Read more on Amazon’s earnings results here.

Arhaus Inc. (No. 331)

Q1 2024: Arhaus net revenue declined 9.5% to 295 million in the first quarter ended March 31. The decline was due to a backlog of deliveries and weather-related delivery issues, the retailer said, partially offset by increased demand.

The retailer did not share specific ecommerce results.

“Really, really pleased with the results that we’re seeing on e-comm, both in terms of sales and also some of the improvements that we’re making in terms of getting traffic to the site and engages when people are on the site,” chief marketing officer Jennifer Porter told investors.

Aritzia, Inc. (No. 154)

Q4 2024 earnings: Aritzia reported that net revenue increased 7% to $682.0 million in its fiscal fourth quarter ended March 3, while comparable sales declined 3%. Retail net revenue increased 14.7%. Meanwhile, ecommerce revenue declined 3.2% to comprise 38.9% of total revenue. Aritzia is investing in updated technology for its website and plans to improve its omnichannel capacity.

“The tremendous opportunity we see in ecommerce is far greater than our recent performance, but we also recognize we’re coming off three years of unprecedented growth, delivering a four year ecommerce net revenue behavior of 34%,” CEO Jennifer Wong told investors. 

Avery Dennison Corp. (No. 319)

Q1 2024 earnings: Avery Dennison said net sales grew 4% to $2.2 billion in the first quarter ended March 30.

“We are off to a strong start to the year. In the first quarter we delivered significant earnings growth, driven by higher volume and productivity gains,” president and CEO Deon Stander said in a written statement. “Materials Group delivered significant volume growth and margin expansion, as downstream inventory destocking subsided and volumes continued to normalize. Solutions Group delivered strong top-line growth, driven by high-value categories, despite apparel imports continuing to be below demand.”

Beyond Inc. (No. 63)

Q1 2024: Beyond, Inc. reported a slight earnings increase and growth in active customers and orders in its fiscal first quarter ended March 31.

Read more on Beyond’s earnings here.

Brilliant Earth Group, Inc. (No. 200)

Q1 2024: Brilliant Earth reported that revenue remained flat at $97.3 million in the first quarter ended March 31. Total orders grew 13%, and repeat order volume grew more than 20%, the jewelry retailer said. However, average order value declined 12.4%. That’s partially due to fine jewelry, as opposed to engagement rings, becoming a larger part of the business. For example, in the two weeks leading up to Valentine’s Day, fine jewelry sales grew 45% year over year. Heart-shaped jewelry sales grew 182% year over year in the full quarter.

CarParts.com, Inc. (No. 146)

Q1 2024: Revenue declined 5% $166.3 million in the quarter ended March 30, Carparts.com said. The majority of the decline came from lights and mirrors, which typically make up about one-quarter of revenue, the retailer said. Due to increased pressure on discount-seeking consumers, CarParts.com will focus customer acquisition on “consumers that want quality parts at competitive prices,” it said. That customer base is more profitable and will yield better margins going forward, the retailer added.

Chewy Inc. (No. 12)

Q4 2023 results: Chewy, Inc. reported that net sales grew in its Q4 and fiscal 2023 ended Jan. 28, 2024, even as pet adoptions declined.

Read more on Chewy earnings here.

Columbia Sportswear Co. (No. 157)

Q1 2024 earnings: Columbia reported net sales declined 6% to $770.0 million in the first quarter ended March 31. Despite the decline, that result exceeded expectations, CEO Tim Boyle said. Direct-to-consumer in-store sales grew year over year, while ecommerce sales declined. That was largely due to promotional activity in 2023 inflating ecommerce sales numbers, he said. Specifically, U.S. DTC sales declined by “mid-teens percent,” Boyle said.

“The overall e-commerce environment remains challenging,” he added.

Costco Wholesale Corp. (No. 6)

Q2 2024 earnings: Costco said net sales grew 5.7% to $57.33 billion in its second fiscal quarter of 2024 ended Feb. 18. Ecommerce comparable sales grew 18.4% in the same period.

Read more on Costco ecommerce sales here.

EBay Inc.

Q1 2024 earnings: EBay revenue grew 2% to $2.56 billion in Q1 ending March 31 while gross merchandise value (GMV) stayed largely flat.

The marketplace ranks No. 6 in Digital Commerce 360’s Global Online Marketplaces database. 

Read more on eBay’s earnings here.

The Estee Lauder Companies, Inc. (No. 41)

Q2 2024 earnings: Estee Lauder reported net sales grew 5% to $3.94  billion in its second fiscal quarter ended March 31. Skin care made up the largest portion of sales, accounting for $2.06 billion in the quarter. That was an increase of 8% from $1.92 billion in the year-ago period. Makeup sales also grew, up 3% year over year to $1.14 billion. Fragrance sales remained nearly flat at $575 million. Meanwhile, hair care sales declined 3% to $143 million.

Etsy Inc.

Q1 2024 earnings: Etsy revenue grew 0.8% to $646.0 million in its fiscal Q1 ended March 31.

Etsy is No. 20 in the Global Online Marketplaces Database. Its musical instrument marketplace Reverb is No. 42 and used-clothing marketplace Depop is No. 51.

Read more on Etsy’s earnings results here.

Figs Inc. (No.163)

Q1 2024: Figs net revenue declined 0.8% to $119.3 million in the first quarter ended March 31. A decrease in orders was partially offset by an increase in average order value, Figs said.

“We’re going to continue to be disciplined around our promotional cadence and we’re going to continue to really utilize promotions in a very celebratory way,” CEO Trina Spear said as the retailer invests in marketing campaigns like the new “I am a nurse” campaign.

Fossil Group, Inc. (No. 188)

Q1 2024: Fossil reported net sales decreased 22% to $255 million in the first quarter ended March 30. The retailer cited “category, consumer and channel softness,” as reasons for the decline, with declines in smartwatch sales also contributing. Industry trends continue to be difficult, the retailer said, as consumers look for value and low costs. However, Fossil predicts a long-term stabilization in the watch market.

Hanesbrands Inc. (No. 277)

Q1 2024: Hanes reported that net sales declined 17% to $1.16 billion in the first quarter ended March 30. That was in the middle of the company’s expectations, it said. Activewear was hit particularly hard, with sales falling 31% year over year to $97 million.

“The remainder of the year-over-year sales decrease was driven by the ongoing combination of challenging activewear apparel market dynamics, including soft consumer demand and cautious ordering from retailers,” Hanes said in a statement.

However, U.S. ecommerce sales fared better. They grew 12% year over year.

Harley-Davidson, Inc. (No. 426)

Q1 2024 earnings: Harley-Davidson said revenue declined 3% to $1.73 billion in the first quarter ended March 31. Global motorcycle shipments decreased 7% year over year in the first quarter, in line with the auto company’s expectations, it said. Accordingly, wholesale shipments declined and sales prices were lower, leading to declining revenue. Revenue grew 12% for the financial services side of the business, despite higher-interest expenses, it said.

Hims & Hers Health Inc. (No. 115)

Q1 2024: Hims & Hers revenue grew 46% to $278.2 million in the first quarter ended March 31. The health company significantly increased investments in TV and other brand campaigns over the last few years, which are now paying off, it said.

“A multi-specialty platform enables us to do this in an efficient manner as we’re able to speak to consumers broadly about a platform of capabilities versus an individual condition. It is clear to us that these efforts are starting to compound,” co-founder and CEO Andrew Dudum told investors.

The retailer ended the quarter with 1.7 million subscribers.

The Honest Company Inc. (No. 823)

Q1 2024: Revenue grew 3% to $86 million in the Honest Co.’s first quarter ended March 31. Baby apparel, wipes, and baby personal care categories drove the growth, it said. The retailer reported a net loss of $1 million, compared with a loss of $19 million in the year-ago period.

The retailer found success on Amazon last quarter. It quadrupled the number of new-to-household customers on Amazon in Q1, it said.

iRobot Corp. (No. 422)

Q1 2024: iRobot said revenue declined 6% to $150.0 million in the first quarter ended March 30. 25% of Q1 revenue was from ecommerce due to greater-than-usual investment in online marketing, iRobot said. It added that that level is likely unsustainable in future quarters.

iRobot also announced Gary Cohen as its new CEO. Cohen previously worked as CEO of Qualitor Automotive and Timex.

Keurig Dr. Pepper Inc. (No. 102)

Q1 2024 earnings: Keurig Dr. Pepper reported that net sales increased 3.4% to $3.47 billion in the first quarter ended March 31. Keurig sales continued to grow among higher-income consumers, while lower- and middle-income consumers are more pressured, the retailer said. Ready-to-drink products represent an area where it can continue growing, it said.

The beverage company also announced incoming CEO Tim Cofer took over the role on April 26 after starting the CEO succession process in September 2023.

LVMH

Q1 2024 results: LVMH reported that total revenue declined 2% to 20.69 billion euros in its fiscal first quarter ended March 31. The wine and spirits category recorded the greatest decline, down 16% year over year. The decline in champagne reflected a continued decrease in post-COVID demand. Meanwhile, other products achieved strong growth in 2023, making results appear weaker this year, LVMH said.

Ecommerce sales grew more slowly than physical retail, but that’s not necessarily a problem, said chief financial officer Jean-Jacques Guiony.

“If products are being sold in stores, we see no necessity to put a lot of them onto the ecommerce and vice versa,” he said. “So basically, I would view the fact that ecommerce is growing less than stores as a good sign of the health of the store channel, which is obviously by far the most important for us.”

LVMH is No. 3 in the Europe Database.

O’Reilly Automotive, Inc. (No. 137)

Q1 2024 earnings: O’Reilly announced that sales grew 7% to $3.98 billion in the first quarter ended March 31. Same-store sales also increased 3.4%, on top of a 10.8% increase in Q1 2023, the retailer said. O’Reilly said the state of the economy plays to its advantage.

“In situations of heightened economic pressures, we believe consumers will continue to prioritize investing to maintain their vehicles, particularly given the significant cost and monthly payment burden of a new or replacement vehicle,” CEO Brad Beckham told investors. “We believe the composition of our sales results support this view of the consumer in the current environment.”

Procter & Gamble Co. (No. 512)

Q3 2024 earnings: Procter & Gamble reported net sales increased 1% to $20.2 billion in its fiscal third quarter ended March 31. The business attributed sales growth across beauty, grooming, home care and baby care segments to pricing increases.

“We expect the environment around us to continue to be volatile and challenging, from input costs to currencies to consumer, retailer and geopolitical dynamics,” chief financial officer Andre Schulten told investors in an earnings call.

Peloton Interactive, Inc. (No. 49)

Q3 2024 earnings: Peloton announced that CEO and president Barry McCarthy would step down, effective immediately. While the company looks for a new CEO, board members Karen Boone and Bruzzo will serve as co-interim CEOs. Peloton revenue declined 3% in its fiscal quarter ended March 31, to $717.7 million. The retailer introduced a cost-reduction plan intended to save $200 million in expenses per year.

Qurate Retail Inc. (No. 18)

Q1 2024: Qurate said revenue declined 4% to $2.64 billion in its fiscal first quarter ended March 31. The Cornerstone brand recorded the greatest decrease in revenue due to challenges in demand for home goods, the retailer said. Qurate is in the midst of a new advertising campaign aimed at the core customer of women over 50, it said.

The RealReal Inc. (No. 714)

Q1 2024: The RealReal said revenue grew 1% to $144 million in its fiscal first quarter ended March 31. Gross merchandise value (GMV) grew 2% to $452 million over the same period. 

Customers on the resale website are “healthy overall,” chief operating officer Rati Levesque said. Average order value and average selling price both increased in the quarter, she added.

Revolve Group Inc. (No. 87)

Q1 2024: Revolve net sales declined 3% to $270.6 million in its fiscal first quarter ended March 31. The apparel retailer said the decline was due to less discounting of products than in the 2023 period. However, sales did grow year over year in the last month of Q1 and the first month of Q2, it said.

Revolve executives see an opportunity to grow their footprint in the luxury ecommerce space.

“Challenges among certain of our luxury e-commerce competitors have further accelerated in recent months,” co-CEO Michael Mente said. “The resulting disruption affecting luxury consumers and luxury brands creates a compelling opportunity for a profitable and cash generative company like Revolve to capitalize by investing in strategies to gain market share. We believe there is an opportunity to pursue the millions of effectively abandoned luxury customers that are up for grabs in the aftermath of the recent industry malaise.”

Sally Beauty Holdings, Inc. (No. 399)

Q2 2024: Sally Beauty reported revenue declined 1.1% to $908 million in its fiscal second quarter ended March 31. Sales were hurt by soft traffic and slowing consumer purchase trends due to the inflationary environment, the retailer said. 

Ecommerce sales were $90 million, or about 9.9% of total sales.

Tapestry Inc. (No. 43)

Q3 2024: Tapestry said revenue declined 2% to $1.48 billion in its fiscal third quarter ended March 30. Online sales accounted for more than 25% of revenue and were more than three times as high as pre-pandemic online sales. 

Direct-to-consumer sales declined 4%, but were offset by a 20% growth in wholesale, Tapestry said. The retailer includes brands Coach, Kate Spade, and Stuart Weitzman.

Target Corp. (No. 5)

Q4 2023 results: Target revenue grew 1.7% to $31.92 billion in its fiscal fourth quarter ended Feb. 3. Online sales declined 0.7%.

Read more on Target’s earnings here.

Tempur Sealy International Inc. (155)

Q1 2024: Tempur Sealy reported that revenue declined 1.5% to $1.19 billion in its fiscal first quarter ended March 31. Ecommerce was a particularly strong segment of the business in Q1, with North America sales increasing 7.7% to $124.2 million. Meanwhile, wholesale sales in the region declined 3.4%. Ecommerce remains a relatively small part of the business, though, Tempur Sealy said.

ThredUp Inc. (No. 589)

Q1 2024: ThredUp revenue increased 5% to $79.6 million in the first quarter ended March 31. The resale retailer heavily invested in artificial intelligence (AI) in the quarter, enabling savings of $17 million and a 20% reduction in its workforce. 

“We have launched a new AI search experience and created two new AI-powered tools that allow consumers to thrift any style that inspires them,” CEO James Reinhart said.

He said those AI tools are uniquely beneficial to ThredUp because of its large and constantly changing catalog.

Warby Parker Inc. (No. 351)

Q1 2024: Warby Parker said net revenue grew 16.3% to $200.0 million in its fiscal first quarter ended March 31. That was the highest quarterly growth since 2021, it said. Active customer count also grew, and both increases are due to successful marketing efforts and customer acquisition strategies, Warby Parker asserted.

“Earlier this year, we set out to reaccelerate both glasses and active customer growth,” said co-founder and co-CEO Dave Gilboa. “We’re encouraged to see strength in single-vision glasses as well as efficiencies across media channels, driven by our team’s strong marketing execution. In Q2 and beyond, we’ll continue to invest in customer acquisition while scaling our holistic vision care offering to drive higher customer lifetime value.”

Wayfair Inc. (No. 10)

Q1 2024 earnings: Wayfair Inc. reported earnings results from its fiscal first quarter ended March 31. Wayfair total net revenue in Q1 declined 1.6% to $2.7 billion.

Read more on Wayfair’s earnings results here.

Yeti Holdings, Inc. (No. 129)

Q1 2024: Yeti said net sales increased 13% to $341.4 million in its fiscal first quarter ended March 30. Drinkware sales grew 13%, and coolers grew 15%. Both led to growing sales across direct-to-consumer and wholesale channels.

To meet continued demand, Yeti will introduce more new products this year. It will introduce cast iron cookware this summer and expand its barware items for Father’s Day.

Ecommerce earnings calendar

Here’s when other ecommerce earnings are scheduled to report this quarter:

• Amazon.com Inc.: Feb. 1
• Best Buy Co Inc.: May 30
• Costco Wholesale Corp.: March 7
• The Home Depot Inc.: May 14
• Lowe’s Cos Inc.: May 21
• Target Corp.: May 22
• Walmart Inc.: May 16

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The post Ecommerce earnings recap: What you missed from Crocs, Boot Barn and more appeared first on Digital Commerce 360.

The round was led by investment firm Iconiq Growth. Existing investors from Index Ventures, Greylock, Imaginary and Harmony Partners also participated. Richa Mehta, principal at Iconiq, will also join Pepper’s board of directors.

“The tremendous support from ICONIQ Growth and our existing investors not only validates our vision but also reinforces our position as the most trusted and transparent technology partner in the foodservice distribution industry,” said Bowie Cheung, CEO and cofounder of Pepper. “This funding will enable us to accelerate our roadmap, focusing on innovative solutions that meet the evolving needs of our customers and strengthen their operations.”

About Pepper

New York City-based Pepper was founded as a startup in 2019. Cofounder Cheung previously spent four years at Uber Eats, according to his LinkedIn. The ecommerce platform works to help independent food service distributors find new customers, grow revenue and become more efficient, it says. 

Pepper raised $30 million in Series B funding.

Pepper previously raised $16 million in a funding round in 2021. At the time, Cheung said the investment would accelerate product development in important areas like digital payments and product recommendations. 

In 2024, Pepper now has more than 140 food distribution customers and more than 16 thousand operators. Since the last funding round, Pepper doubled its customer base and released 100 new features, it said.

How Pepper will use the new funding

The technology vendor shared some plans for investing the $30 million.

“This new funding will enable us to significantly accelerate product development and growth of our customer support teams, so that we can deliver even more value to independents,” Cheung said in a LinkedIn post.

Pepper will “double down” on these key areas, it said:

• Generative AI: Pepper says AI will make operations more efficient by creating order guides and turning voicemails into orders, among other uses.
• Customer relationship management (CRM): It will improve CRM capabilities with features like streamlined identification and setup and dynamic product recommendations.
• Product library expansion: Pepper uses AI to curate the food service product library.
• Advertising: It will implement new features like targeted advertising campaigns and sponsored search keywords.
• Ecommerce UX enhancements: Pepper will improve customer experience through investment in product displays, expanded analytics, and enhanced offline capabilities.

“We’re still in the early innings of digital transformation for one of the oldest and most important industries around. There’s so much more work to be done,” Cheung said in the post. He added that Pepper is hiring for roles across engineering, marketing, sales, customer success, and business development.

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Brent Bellm, chairman and CEO, BigCommerce

“Q1 results reflected a good start to the year to our top and bottom line plans,” chairman and CEO Brent Bellm said on the Q1 earnings call, noting that EBITDA earnings reached $4.18 million, compared to a year-ago EBITDA loss of or $5.48 million.

But one area Bellm singled out as a source of excitement was demand for B2B ecommerce technology.

“B2B is a very, very healthy segment for us … an area I get really excited about,” he said, according to an earnings call transcript from Seeking Alpha. He added that the company was pushing ahead with B2B product investment and development as part of a strategy to build a competitive advantage and produce targeted gains in financial health and market share.

BigCommerce revealed its latest developments in B2B technology last week with the launch of the open-source version of its B2B Edition Buyer Portal. The company says the open-source portal is designed to let B2B companies build “tailored buyer experiences designed to meet unique industry demands and workflows” for “a bespoke customer experience” from product discovery to sale and post-sale support.

Lance Owide, senior director and general manager of B2B at BigCommerce, said in an interview that the open-source buyer portal is for enterprises doing between $500 million and over $1 billion in revenue. He added that ten of BigCommerce’s largest customers and digital agency deployment partners have started working with it. Although he was not free to name those companies, he said one of them is a $15 billion manufacturer of construction materials and another is a $6 billion manufacturer of electronic components.

Owide said that the open-source B2B portal enables companies to build customizations of such features as buyer approval workflows, product price quoting, and invoicing on top of the base functionality for those and other features in the BigCommerce B2B Edition.

In the first quarter BigCommerce also launched Catalyst, an online storefront development technology designed to help companies build flexible and customizable ecommerce sites using headless and composable  commerce architecture. On the earnings call, Bellm said Catalyst “is the culmination of more than 4,000 headless and composable builds on BigCommerce since 2016.”

BigCommerce also noted these development features of the open-source B2B Edition Buyer Portal:

• Tailored purchasing experiences based on a buyer’s specific region, industry vertical and unique buying processes.
• Integrated servicing experiences specific to industry best practices, including warranties, customer support and product servicing.
• Using a pre-built technology foundation and access to source to potentially save development time, cost and resources in implementing B2B online storefronts with a customized buyer experience.

BigCommerce customers using the B2B Edition include Asahi Beverages, Gesswein, Imperial Dade, Inhaven, MKM Building Supplies, The Beer Bat, Tectran, Toolsaver, Twin Liquors, and United Aqua Group.

BigCommerce reported for the first quarter ended March 31:

• Revenue grew 12% year over year to $80.4 million, including a 13% increase in subscription revenue to $61.0 million.
• Net loss narrowed 71% to $6.4 million from 22.1 million.
• The number of enterprise accounts increased 2% to 5,970, and the average revenue per enterprise account rose 6% to $41,581.

Paul Demery is a Digital Commerce 360 contributing editor covering B2B digital commerce technology and strategy. paul@digitalcommerce360.com.

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Adobe says its data is based on more than 1 trillion visits to U.S. retail ecommerce sites, 100 million SKUs and 18 product categories.

“In an unpredictable economic environment, the latest data from Adobe Analytics shows continued resilience in the digital economy, as consumers embrace new categories online,” said Vivek Pandya, lead analyst at Adobe Digital Insights, in a statement. “Groceries is a standout, and Adobe expects that in the next three years, the category will be a dominant force in e-commerce that is on par with electronics and apparel in revenue share.”

In total, 333 online retailers in the Top 1000 use Adobe for vendor services including — but not limited to — its ecommerce platform. Some use it for web analytics, performance and hosting, as well as cloud services and more. The Top 1000 is Digital Commerce 360’s database ranking the largest North American online retailers based on their annual web sales.

Top online retail sales categories through April

From Jan. 1 through April 30, consumers spent $331.6 billion online, the data shows.

Adobe Analytics projects more than $500 billion in U.S. retail ecommerce spending in the first half of 2024. That would represent at least 6.8% year-over-year growth, based on Adobe data from 2023.

Electronics, apparel and grocery sales guided retail ecommerce spending through April this year, Adobe said. Consumers spent $61.8 billion online on electronics (3.1% year-over-year growth), $54.5 billion on apparel (2.6% growth) and $38.8 billion on groceries (15.7% growth), the data showed.

The cosmetics category also grew year over year — up 8% to $13.2 billion. In all of 2023, the cosmetics category accounted for $35 billion in online sales, which was up 15.6% year over year.

Adobe found that within the grocery category, “goods with low inflation saw revenue grow by 13.4%, while products with high inflation saw revenue drop by 15.6%. The effect was less pronounced in a category such as cosmetics (revenue up 3.06% for low-inflation goods, down only 0.34% for high-inflation goods), as consumers exhibit stronger loyalty for their favorite brands.”

Consumers fight inflation while shopping online

Adobe separated its data into four price quartiles. Going back to January 2019 from April 2024, it found that the share of the cheapest products “increased significantly across categories.”

• Personal care (up 96%)
• Electronics (up 64%)
• Apparel (up 47%)
• Home/garden (up 42%)
• Furniture/bedding (up 42%)
• Grocery (up 33%)

Although to a lesser extent, the sales share of cheapest goods also grew for:

• Sporting goods (up 28%)
• Appliances (up 26%)
• Tools/home improvement (up 26%)
• Toys (up 25%)

Adobe noted that these are categories where brand loyalty has more of an impact on consumers’ decision-making. It also said consumers tend to invest in higher-quality products within these categories.

Retail ecommerce trends and forecasts in early 2024

In a different way of combating inflation, U.S. consumers continue to use BNPL (buy now, pay later) “for greater flexibility in managing their budgets,” Adobe said.

Through April this year, consumers used BNPL to spend $25.9 billion. That’s up 11.8% through the same period last year.

Adobe projects that to grow through 2024, driving between $81 billion and $84.8 billion. That would put year-over-year growth between 8% and 13%, Adobe said.

Mobile commerce also grew in the first four months of 2024, bringing in $156.9 billion in online sales. That’s up 9.8% over the same period in 2023. Adobe projects mobile sales to take a 52.5% share of online revenue in 2024 holiday spending (November through December). In the 2023 holiday season, mobile spending surpasses desktop for the first time at 51% share of November and December sales. Mobile spending in the 2023 holiday season peaked on Christmas at 61% share of sales.

When it comes to marketing channels, paid search has driven the largest share of sales this year, Adobe said. It attributes 28.2% of retail ecommerce spending to paid search, and:

• 19..6% to direct web visits
• 17.1% to affiliates/partners (17.1%)
• 15.9% to organic search (15.9%)
• 15.4% to email

Revenue that Adobe directly attributes to social media remained at less than 5% of total sales, but that share has grown 5.2% year over year in 2024. Organic search has declined 5.6%, Adobe said, driving 15.9% of total sales so far this year.

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The post Retail ecommerce spending grows in first third of year, Adobe data shows appeared first on Digital Commerce 360.