Tech

Online shopping is confusing bananas


The mantra of 2022 really should be: Nobody knows what’s going to happen.

It’s amazing how little we understand about how the pandemic has changed our lives and our country. It is not clear whether the US economy is it hot or not?or if Big cities like New York will forever be a scar. We are not sure if women’s careers have permanently weakened or if ours Mental health will be fine.

The future of our online shopping habits is another unknown.

Recently, the government revealed that the US e-commerce boom during the pandemic is even bigger than it previously believed. But in 2021, that trend starts to decline a bit. Physical store beat e-commerce last year, and they continue to do so this year. The trajectory of online purchases has inexplicably shifted from banana to banana.

Now, corporate executives, retail analysts and economists are trying to figure out how quickly we can move into a future in which online shopping is the main way to shop. . Will internet purchases return to the pretty steady growth rates of the decade before 2020? Or has the pandemic permanently upended our e-commerce lives?

Don’t expect a definite answer for a long time, but the next few weeks clues from Amazon, Walmart and government sales data will give us a better idea.

This is not just a confusing argument. Our collective buying behavior affects trillion-dollar companies, millions of retail jobs, and the health of the US economy. Uncertainty about the direction of online shopping is one of the biggest questions facing the tech industry and financial markets right away.

I will try to present the shopping situation as clearly as possible.

For most of the decade before 2020, Americans shopped more and more online at a predictable rate. E-commerce sales increase about 10 to 15 percent annually, according to the Census Bureau dataearn a little more each year from the money Americans spend in stores.

After that, internet shopping became more active, with our online purchases increasing by at least 50% in the first months after the virus started spreading in the US, according to a recent revision. government data.

But then last year, shopping in physical stores increased rapidly and online shopping has since lost its place. For many people, it feels like a relief to wander the store aisles again. High inflation can also motivate people to spend more of their budgets on the essentials we still need buy a lot in the store.

Other signs showing a similar picture of meh growth for internet purchases include data from Mastercard SpendPulse, which tracks purchases in the US, shows E-commerce sales increased only 1.1% in June compared to the same month in 2021. In-store purchases increased by nearly 12%.

None of this is a shock. Of course, we won’t continue to shop online as if spring 2020. And it’s likely that online shopping today would account for a much larger share than Americans’ spending if the pandemic had never happened. out.

The open question is what happens now. Will we return to the relatively slow and steady online shopping growth of 2019? Or will the discreet habits learned in the early stages of the pandemic continue to influence our shopping, making this growth even faster? Or maybe, even slower?

This is a headache for anyone selling, but it’s also important to us. Amazon said it overrate How enduring the online shopping frenzy will be and how much it has spent on new warehouses and other things. The company is withdrawing, which affects the jobs of people and the communities where Amazon is withdrawing.

And, I’m sorry to bring this up, but the golden age for online shoppers can be fraught with risks. Hangover from the pandemic and other changes that made it harder and more expensive for companies that sell online content to buy, ship, store, and advertise their products. If online shopping takes a turn for the worse in the next few years, merchants large and small could rethink the amount of money they spend on the e-commerce features we enjoy, such as delivery. Free shipping and in-store pickup.

If you thought the past few years were uncertain in shopping and beyond, it could become even more so.



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