Online Retailer Survey 2023 : e-commerce after Corona: skills shortages, overdistribution, and artificial intelligence
Creators: name: Zumstein, Darius
name: Oswald, Carmen
name: Brauer, Claudia
Publisher: name: ZHAW Zürcher Hochschule für Angewandte Wissenschaften
Year: 2023
Subjects: 658.8: Marketingmanagement

description: The Online Retailer Survey 2023 (Chapters 2 to 5) was conducted for the sixth time in a row and involved 598 online shops in the business-to-consumer (B2C; 82 percent), business-to-business (B2B; 45 percent) and direct-to-manufacturer (D2C; 14 percent) sectors. Retailers can operate in B2B, B2C, and D2C at the same time. In addition to 441 Swiss online retailers (74 percent), 136 Austrian online retailers (23 percent) took part in the repre-sentative online survey.
In 2020 and 2021, online sales boomed due to the Corona crisis, with purchases shifting from offline to online. For almost half of the online shops, online growth continued, mostly at a slower pace, and online sales continued to grow in 2022. However, for the other half, online sales in 2022 decreased slightly since last year and it was back to business as usual. Nine out of ten retailers said that “the Corona e-commerce boom is over”. Two-thirds agreed that online competition had increased, resulting in a decline in sales. In addition, almost all retailers confirm that consumer sentiment has deteriorated since 2022, partly due to the war in the Ukraine. Three-quarters believe that inflation has eroded their clients' purchasing power, and that they are spending their money elsewhere, such as on travel. In addition, a quarter of respondents strongly agreed and half of them agreed that customers are returning to physical stores, and that this is the reason for the decline in online sales.
For the first time in this series of studies, applications of artificial intelligence (AI) in e-commerce have been examined in more detail. The most common use of AI – especially ChatGPT – is for content creation in the online shop, mostly texts but also images and graphics. Automated product and offer recommendations were the second most frequently mentioned. The personalization of content offers and ordering processes using AI is also an important issue for retailers. In addition, AI is playing an increasingly important role in digital sales and customer advice, as well as in customer service, for example by supporting customer queries in chatbots. When searching for products in an online shop, AI can help by improving search algorithms and results. For many online retailers, AI also plays an important role in generating and enriching product information, such as product descriptions. AI also has many applications in digital marketing, particularly in analyzing and optimizing advertising campaigns, for example on social media and search engines. ChatGPT helps retailers with search engine optimization by creating or optimizing text for Google and other search engines.
The biggest challenges in e-commerce today are competitive markets (e.g., increasing competition and price battles) and marketing (e.g., tight budgets, increasing complexity, and marketing costs). Procurement problems (e.g., long delivery times, import problems, and delivery costs) decreased for many retailers this year. However, with half of e-commerce companies lacking (skilled) staff, know-how, and knowledge, recruitment and staffing challenges have worsened. According to the retailers surveyed, the current skills shortage means that the front and back ends of online shops are not being developed as quickly as desired, product development and innovation are not being driven forward, projects are being cancelled, and customer acquisition and advice are being reduced due to understaffing.
In terms of payment methods, mobile payment continues to gain ground: For Swiss online retailers, TWINT has become more important than payment on account (invoice) and has established itself as the second most important payment method after the credit card. TWINT can already be used at four out of five Swiss online shops. Every second online shop now offers debit card payment (e.g., Visa Debit or Master Debit). Apple Pay and Google Pay are growing rapidly at a low level: Every fourth online shop already accepts Apple Pay, and almost every fifth welcomes Google Pay. Payment by instalments and offers from solution providers are also growing.
As a guest contribution in Chapter 6, this edition of the study contains a follow-up to the Commerce Report Switzerland study series published by the University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland (FHNW) and Datatrans, now Planet. The article, written by Ralf Wölfle, is entitled “Commerce after Corona”. It is a reflection on the long-term effects of the Corona pandemic on the distribution of consumer goods. The results of the ZHAW quantitative survey of online retailers also contain the findings from 18 structured interviews with members of the long-standing FHNW study panel.
The report begins with an assessment of the current situation and diagnoses a crisis in the consumption of physical products. This is due, on the one hand, to a backlash against the consumer goods boom during the pandemic and, on the other hand, to the current macroeconomic environment. The crisis affects both physical and online stores. In the opinion of the study participants, the jump in turnover in e-commerce triggered by Corona will probably balance itself out again in a multi-year view. The impact of the pandemic has been described as a tipping point for the industry. This involves the shift of trade functions from traditional retailers to online retailers. The two most important new aspects are the overcoming of the separation of the two channels, stationery and online, and the social impact of making daily routines more flexible. This has led to a greater diversity in the demand for shopping opportunities and services.
The Corona pandemic has caused over-distribution in the non-food sector. This means that it is becoming more and more difficult for suppliers to differentiate themselves from the competition, not least due to the mechanisms of digital platforms. A look ahead to the next five years concludes the guest article. It focuses on the tension between supplier concentration and supplier diversity. In a nutshell, there is more diversity from fewer, more powerful providers.