The BI Intelligence Content Marketing Team covers news & research we think you would find valuable. This topic was originally highlighted and sent to subscribers of the E-Commerce Insider Newsletter.
Shoppers love coupons and discounts, and they've spoken out about how they want retailers to deliver them.
A report from PricewaterhouseCoopers reveals that 58% of U.S. shoppers prefer to receive their coupons, discounts, and promotions through email rather than other digital or physical means. This compares to 20% for printed coupons, 10% for text messages, and 5% for mobile apps.
Nancee Halpin, a research associate for BI Intelligence, Business Insider's premium research service, notes that this data creates a tremendous opportunity for retailers who rely on email marketing to reach their customers, as email drove 16% of all e-commerce orders in 2015.
But simply sending out the emails is not enough. Timing is also key.
A report from Experian Marketing Services said that consumers on the receiving end of these email marketing campaigns are most likely to consequently make a purchase online if the emails are sent between 8 a.m. and 12 p.m. on Mondays.
Report such as these from PWC and Experian Marketing Services provide invaluable data for brands and retailers as they develop and adjust their e-commerce strategies to better serve their customers. And this trend is already happening.
This past holiday season gave us the clearest indication yet that there's never been a better time to be a consumer. The rise of online and mobile shopping has given consumers more choice, flexibility, and often better service, and retailers are shifting their strategies to keep up.
Here are some of the key takeaways:
  • Within digital, consumers are spreading out their retail purchasing across channels, forcing retailers to spread out their online marketing budgets. Paid search, affiliate marketing, and email all increased their share of e-commerce referrals last year, according to Custora.
  • Paid search especially stood out as a major source of spending by retailers. Search ad spending grew 18% YoY in Q4 2015, according to IgnitionOne.
  • Mobile continues to drive the most sales growth for retailers, but sales still aren't keeping up with retail traffic. IBM found that smartphone traffic beat both tablet and desktop, making up 53% of all online traffic. But mobile still only accounted for 29% of all online sales.
  • Retailers only have themselves to blame for underperformance on mobile, as many still aren't using best practices for mobile websites and apps. Only 60% of the top 100 global retailers currently have a dedicated mobile website, according to The Search Agency.
  • The increase in online shopping has put stress on the shipping and logistics industry. The number of UPS ground packages delivered on time during the holidays fell from 97% in 2014 to 91% in 2015, according to ShipMatrix.
  • Retailers are beginning to explore alternative shipping options. Earlier this year Gilt Groupe switched its primary ground shipper from UPS to Newgistics.
  • Retailers that can't afford to invest in alternative shipping options are offering consumers more fulfillment options using what many of them do have — brick-and-mortar stores. Buying online and picking up in-store, also called click and collect, made up about 30% of e-commerce sales at Sam's Club in 2015.