We hear stories every day about people like Mark Zuckerberg going from rags to riches in just a few short years thanks to the endless opportunities of the internet. Companies like Airbnb, Uber PayPal, and Netflix are not only realizing incredible success as they ride the wave of our new information age, but they are creating opportunities for their customers and employees as well. The world of online business is growing exponentially fast, and it’s sometimes hard to keep up. Here are six revealing facts about the state of the online business.

Who Is Getting the Most Money?

It’s hard to believe that as of 2015, five companies were reaping an astounding 70 percent of all online dollars. Here is a breakdown of the players. First and foremost was Amazon at a remarkable 33 percent. Not too far behind them was Google at 24 percent. eBay was a distant cousin but far from a failure when you consider that they accounted for 6 percent of all online revenue. Facebook was at 5 percent, followed by QVC with 3 percent.

Mobile Apps

Mobile websites and apps have grown steadily over the past several years, with a steady six percent rise in online consumers shopping. The fastest growth has been in the United States, where the convenience factor easing the demands of busy schedules seems to be driving the growth. If your organization’s website isn’t optimized for mobile use yet, you’re missing out on an incredible opportunity to reach a whole new audience. In 2015 alone, experts reported that businesses with a robust mobile website increased revenues by an unbelievable 157 percent!

Read More: How Mobile Apps Play Vital Role in Business

E-commerce Marketing

Automation has transitioned from being trendy to being an absolute necessity. Not only is email still alive and well, but it has become a major factor in customer conversions and relationship building. Automated emails have become mainstream in e-commerce, resulting in a reported boost of up to 70 percent higher page interaction rates and 152 percent higher click-through rates than traditional “business as usual” types of emails.

Read More: 5 Free Online Advertising Channels For Your Business

Sign Contracts Electronically

More and more companies today are using electronic signatures versus an old-school print, sign, and file system. There’s no longer a need for in-person meetings with clients to get contracts signed. Need to learn how to set it up or how to esign a document? No problem — the internet makes learning easy and convenient.

The Growth of E-commerce

In 2015, global spending on e-commerce reached an astounding $4.7 billion, increasing 15 percent from the previous year. Who is buying over the internet? Well, just about everyone, but on average, millennials make 54 percent of all their purchases online versus 49 percent of non-millennials. Also, it’s a little surprising to find that male millennials actually buy more things online than females. Up to 40 percent of American males between the ages of 18-34 say they would prefer to buy everything online if possible, compared to only 33 percent of millennial females.

Shopping Cart Abandonment Statistics

A whopping 60 percent of online shoppers said that being hit with unexpected costs, such as extraordinary shipping costs, taxes, or fees, is the main reason they leave without completing their purchase. You may be shocked to find that e-commerce shoppers abandon their shopping carts at check out almost 70 percent of the time.

What’s even more shocking is that at the average abandonment rate of 68 percent, these sites could be losing over $3 billion in revenue annually!  A study by PayPal revealed that 43 percent of shoppers abandoned their shopping carts only because they thought that shipping charges were too high.  The result is that is that out of every 10 items that get put into an average consumer’s online shopping cart, only about one-third of them end up being purchased.

As the e-commerce industry continues to change and take new shape around the world, organizations must jump onboard the digital highway and stay on top of their statistics. Don’t forget to review your own company’s business analytics on a regular basis so you know how your company is performing. Are you getting the traffic you need? How many people are interacting and purchasing? Evaluate your marketing campaigns to see which ones are working and what your customers are buying.

The industry is exploding with new customers across all demographics and localities. It’s up to you to use the information available to enhance your success.

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