The buyer's journey or customer journey begins from the moment the buyer is aware that he or she has a need and that he or she has to find a way to solve it. Now, the user is the center of any online sales strategy and it is vital to focus efforts to make the shopping experience as fruitful as possible. But what is more profitable, digital sales or physical sales? We will reveal it to you below.
From physical to digital sales
There are many who have shown their rejection of crowds in physical spaces and prefer to make their purchases online. Even social groups that until two years ago viewed advertising phone number data e-commerce from a cautious and even reluctant perspective - generations such as the Silent or Baby Boomers - have begun a transformation in their consumption habits , moving from offline to online, currently being one of the most active audiences by recognizing for the first time certain benefits of electronic commerce: immediacy, convenience or usability among others that shake the coexistence with traditional business in sectors such as retail.
Digital sales in Spain
In countries like Spain, the number of eCommerce users is expected to grow by 25% to reach 35 million users in 2024. Currently, more than 60% of the Spanish population already purchases online , of which 40% do so with their smartphone.
Very advantageous data for e-commerce in Spain, which, together with the United Kingdom, the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, France and Italy, mark the countries with the best results in electronic purchasing. In fact, in the last Black Friday 2021 campaign – in Spain – there was an increase of around 21 points compared to 2020; an aspect that symbolizes that electronic commerce is not stagnating, but rather continues to grow .
The marketplaces
Within the colossal ecosystem of online shopping, Marketplaces appear: the great unknowns – until now – in the digital sales strategy; incorporating countless brands that, after the pandemic phenomenon, have opted for these new commercial tactics with high guarantees. The key is to know what are the benefits that each of these platforms has and to previously analyze which ones are best suited to the characteristics of the business, since there are several types of marketplace :
Locals
Regional
Continentals
International
Themes
Generic
The digital transformation of companies
The fact that in Spain we currently have an Internet penetration rate of over 85%, of which more than 80% use smartphones, has led to e-commerce already having high levels of digital demand. This in turn has led to the emergence of companies with 100% digital operations and the adaptation of the physical point of sale to the digital one of those that have seen their offline income reduced.
With data from the end of 2020, Spain already has 60% penetration in online shopping and 61% of users who browse the internet before buying in physical stores. All this translates into twenty-eight million active users in ecommerce , a figure unmatched in previous years – and which, of course – boosts such progress.
In this sense, the POS (point of sale) has also undergone changes in recent years within the digital ecosystem. Social networks such as Facebook, Pinterest, or Instagram or search engines such as Bing, Google, or Yahoo! have been adapting to e-commerce, offering alternatives to open electronic stores, so that users can view, search for and buy products and/or services without having to go to the brand's website.
The same is true of the aforementioned Marketplaces – Amazon, eBay, El Corte Inglés or Carrefour , among others – which have become the new gateway when it comes to presenting an endless number of categories and subcategories of different lines of business, with the pretext of offering digital visibility to brands and shopping convenience for users.
Digital sales, by sectors
It is true that businesses such as toys, electronics, leisure, the pet sector and the media were already – prior to the pandemic – quite advanced categories in digitalisation and, above all, with a high presence in purchases through e-commerce and Marketplace in the Spanish market. However, after the arrival of COVID – 19, and given the high rate of user penetration in electronic commerce, other industries – which did not have a high penetration in online sales – have seen their numbers grow and are in full race towards digitalisation and incursion into the Marketplace, such as, for example:
Mass consumption (personal care, food, drinks, drugstores, babies)
Home
Decoration
Sport
Fashion
Beauty
Automotive
In Spain, over the last two years, online shopping has evolved significantly, moving from the web-centric concept – where the user goes to the brand’s website to carry out the transaction – to the user-centric method – in which channels such as Marketplaces are preferred, where they are shown high visibility of various brands, review of offers and prices, in addition to the verification of characteristics of different kinds in a few steps, the comfort and convenience in receiving and returning orders, and the internationalization of the service. In this way, Spaniards show a purchasing behavior – until now atypical – in which digital search and sale is promoted firstly in the Marketplace, followed by the store’s website, search engines, comparison websites, social networks, offer aggregator websites and forums and blogs, among other minority options.
Online sales platforms
One of the main precursors of this change in e-commerce purchasing habits has been the strong presence of Amazon in the Spanish market , which is also a leader in all the European markets where it has presence, as well as in the USA and Canada, among other countries. Today, it is the digital retail channel with the greatest sales force in the country, as well as being the one with the highest frequency of purchase by Spanish users, with an estimated average of seventeen times a year per active user. However, it is not only Amazon that dominates the Marketplace sector; in recent years, large retailers with a strong physical presence have also vigorously opted to evolve to online.
Behind Amazon, as number one in the ranking of Marketplaces in Spain with the highest consumer insertion in 2021, are:
AliExpress
eBay
The English Court
Carrefour
House of Books
FNAC
Zalando
Leroy Merlin
Marketplace consumers, by age group
Of the four main Marketplaces, in terms of consumer penetration by age groups, we see the following.
Amazon
Amazon leads virtually all age groups:
The 18 to 30 year old
The one from 31 to 45
Those aged 46 to 65
The latter being the one that curiously has the most consumers .
AliExpress
On AliExpress, the users who bring the best results to the channel are:
Those from 31 to 45
Those aged 46 to 65
eBay
On eBay there is a notable increase in the 31 to 45 age group, but it is, along with Amazon, the one with the highest percentages of young users (18 to 30 years old).
The English Court
For its part, El Corte Inglés stands out for the age ranges from 31 to 65 years , being the Marketplace with the least incursion in young users of the four major players.
Featured shopping categories:
Currently, the most purchased categories on Marketplace – in ascending order – are:
Home
Electronics
Fashion
Books and cinema
Video games
Sport
Office supplies
Beauty and personal hygiene
Feeding
Jewelry and accessories
You drink
Automotive articles
Toys
Pets
Among all of these, although it is true that some Marketplaces such as Casa del Libro (books), Zalando (fashion), Carrefour (mass consumption) or Leroy Merlín (home), specialize in a specific topic, Spaniards show a cross-border tendency, preferring to purchase different goods and services in general environments where their shopping list can be plural and multi-category, including fashion items, mass consumption items, or home items – for example.
We are certainly witnessing unprecedented growth, which opens the way for new brands to enter this iconic area of e-commerce with greater force; and the commitment of large traditional retailers to online positioning. In fact, although they are not in the top five of the Marketplaces with the highest user traffic in Spain, the growth of others such as:
Electronics
PC Components
Mediamarkt
Feeding
Lidl
Alcampo
Day
Eroski
Mercadona
Personal care
Primor
Douglas
Perfume's Club
Druni
Fashion
Venca
Veepee
Laredoute
Asos
Pets
Tiendanimal
Zooplus
There is no doubt that in Spain, over the last two years, online shopping has evolved significantly, moving from the web-centric concept – where the user turns to the brand’s website to carry out the transaction – to the user-centric method – in which channels such as Marketplaces are preferred, where they are shown high visibility of various brands, review of offers and prices, in addition to the verification of characteristics of different kinds in a few steps, the comfort and convenience in receiving and returning orders, and the internationalization of the service. In this way, Spaniards show a purchasing behavior – until now atypical – in which digital search and sale is promoted firstly in the Marketplace, followed by the store’s website, search engines, comparison websites, social networks, offer aggregator websites and forums and blogs, among other minority options.
Within this digital chess game, logistics and commercial management are more closely linked than ever with marketing actions focused on performance results. For the first time, channels such as Marketplaces, as well as web Ecommerce, allow brands to launch advertising campaigns and promotions that can accurately measure how much sales volume has been generated for each euro invested in advertising. It is at this point that brands do away with the cliché of advertising equals spending, to give way to the next level where advertising materializes into business investment and profitability .
We are witnessing unprecedented growth. E-commerce has become democratized and companies and organizations that are not adapted to it will find it difficult to move forward if they do not evolve with the public.
