Retail Sales – United Sales – January 2017BY: PAUL YOUNG, CPA, CGADATE: FEBRUARY 15, 2017

Agenda• Summary• Sales by Segment• USA Retail Sales / BMO• eCommerce Trends

Key Headlines

Summary / Retail Sales

Source - https://www.census.gov

Sales by Segment / USA

Source - https://www.census.gov

BMO / USA Retail Sales

Source – BMO Economics

Ecommerce / 2017 - USA

Source - https://www.shopping-cart-migration.com/blog/61-must-know-tips/2017-e-commerce-trends-store-owners-need-aware

• The usage of mobile devices for e-Commerce has been increasing steadily over the past few years and in 2017 its growth is predicted to continue as well. Almost $2.5-millions were spent by US shoppers alone during the 2016 Black Friday and Cyber Monday through mobile e-Commerce. 2017’s sale rates for the same period is forecasted to boost again!

• Live chats for customer support has seen a rise in 2016. According to e-Commerce predictions for 2017 a greater number of online retailers are expected to offer this service this year. As more and more businesses experience the positive effect of providing a real-time customer support through the chat boxes, there’s no reason to give a second thought to the implementation of such a useful service.

• Statistics collected by Cart2Cart, a leading service of automated shopping cart migration, shows that a share of stores using hosted solution was steadily growing throughout 2016 and is previewed to continue its active growth in 2017. More and more store owners are attracted by benefits of hosted shopping carts like Shopify, BigCommerce, 3DCart and willing to shift from their on-premise platforms. Cart2Cart automated service offers a hassle-free migration to the popular hosted e-Commerce solutions. It lets you move securely and smoothly all the valuable data like products, categories, customers, orders, images, manufacturers, etc in shortest possible terms and without any programming skills required.

• There are already lots of stores on social networking sites and in 2017, social commerce is expected to become even more extensive.• In the past, social network sites served largely as a marketing tool for online businesses, since transactions had to be performed exclusively

on the company's’ website. With the uprise of apps providing necessary shopping functionality, social networking sites have turned into a full-fledged e-Commerce channel where users can conduct actual transactions. Introduction of another medium for online retail has drastically expanded the reach and the opportunities for e-Commerce businesses. Thus, they are encouraged to exert more efforts for strengthening their presence in social media, especially such powerful channel as Instagram.

• Cart abandonment will always be one of the biggest challenges for e-Commerce businesses. The growth of mobile e-Commerce has aggravated the situation as the attention span of online shoppers are constantly getting shorter. Thus, retailers are forced to be more creative with their retargeting efforts.

• Virtual reality is gaining popularity among e-Commerce retailers. Sports gear shops, for example, are using virtual reality to let the customers “try” their gear within different environments. Since VR is still at its onset and provides a kind of exceptional experience, it is perceived as a valuable marketing tool. It will cause a wider implementation of VR for online businesses in 2017.