Online retail sales jump 20% due to impact of coronavirus

The Coronavirus is changing the way people shop, with the restrictions on movement and health fears driving an increase in spending online. Analytics platform Contentsquare published a report based on its analyses of 1.8 billion user sessions and 50 million transactions on 1,400 websites worldwide between the weeks of February 16 and 23. The study compared the conversion rate, the number of transactions, the number of visits, the length of sessions in order to analyse changes in consumer behaviour online during the two-week period.

The results showed a sharp increase in conversions for household and grocery items, as well as a major rise in hours spent on the web searching for first necessity products. Online purchases from large retailers increased by nearly 20% and consumers spent 25.7% more hours searching online, up 44%. At the same time fears over shortages drove sales in physical stores up 16%, with an 8.1% increase in the industry’s average conversion rate.

Over the coming weeks, it is likely that online sales will continue to rise if lockdowns spread worldwide.

Press Release: https://contentsquare.com/