Make it Big Podcast: Global Consumer Current and Future Shopping Trends with Shelley Kilpatrick

Welcome to The Make it Big Podcast, a bi-weekly audio series about all things ecommerce by BigCommerce.

We commissioned a survey of over 4,000 consumers with Profitwell to uncover the latest shopping trends and compiled the results with data from Google into an ecommerce report.

Shelley Kilpatrick, a Content Marketing Manager at BigCommerce and the author of that report, joins the Make it Big Podcast to break down what’s in the report.   

All episodes of The Make it Big Podcast are now available on Spotify, Apple and Google.  

Pablo Gallaga:  So, let’s dive right in. Let’s start out by outlining the topics the report covers. What did you set out to learn more about when you commissioned the survey? 

Shelley Kilpatrick: “What we really were trying to do was find insights that you couldn’t find anywhere else. We wanted to see what’s new, what’s different, what’s emerging trends, so we wanted to look at a few different things that were stand out. Obviously the big topics that we hear about all the time, like the Metaverse. We wanted to learn about NFTs, cryptocurrency. How do people really feel about these things? Do they understand them? 

“And then we wanted to look at trends that have been around a while and really understand, how important are they to consumers? So, data privacy, personalization, sustainability. So, these are the things we really wanted to dig into and get some true data and insights about where consumers are at with these things.”

PG: What would you say is the current landscape with online shoppers? How frequently do they shop online? What are they looking for? 

SK: “As we’ve all heard, the pandemic really accelerated ecommerce. We’ve been saying that for a long time. So we really wanted to see, what is the real frequency? Really get granular with it. And what we found is over half of consumers shop online at least once a week. More shop more often, so two or three times. It was pretty interesting to see that’s the frequency. Mostly they’re buying apparel and clothing and fashion. That’s probably one of the most well known things to buy. We also found electronics, that’s another top category.”  

PG: That sounds like me. 

SK: “Oh, I’m definitely the fashion one. We actually, on our team, Brett, we were talking about, ‘What do you buy online?’ And he said he is an in-person guy–”

PG: Shoes.

SK: “Yeah. Shoes. That’s the one thing he buys online. So, that’s pretty interesting. I think with apparel being such a big online purchase that people are making, it’s a really good place for brands to innovate. Like where are they innovating in retail, knowing that fashion is a top category people are buying online?

“So whether that’s AR, VR, the Metaverse, I know we’ll get into that. But brands, I think we… just looking for data, we saw Gucci and other major fashion brands are the ones that are kind of pioneering the Metaverse. So, fashion is such an interesting industry because they’re pioneering a lot of things.”

PG: And do consumers care about discounts? Is that anything that’s affecting what they do online? 

SK: “Yeah. I know discounts are something that have been around forever, but I still think it’s important to really get a pulse on which ones are the most important to consumers. And unsurprisingly, as we all know, free shipping was the number one choice.

“Consumers want free shipping. They expect free shipping. If you’re looking to increase your conversion rates, free shipping. That is the go-to.” 

PG: Good insight there! And that’s a really good baseline to keep in mind as we get into the more specific insights we have.

Read the full report Global Consumer Report: Current and Future Shopping Trends, and be sure to check out more episodes of The Make it Big Podcast on Spotify, Apple and Google.