70% of ecommerce retailers said their top priority for 2023 was to acquire more customers, and 58% of retailers questioned said they would look to invest more in achieving that. In terms of retailer growth, 66% of respondents said they were looking to increase their headcount this year.
The in-depth Pulse Ecommerce Survey #1 by Vervaunt questioned retailers in March at their financial year end and found that sentiment for the year ahead was broadly positive.
When asked on a scale of 1-10 how optimistic they are about the next 12 months, the vast majority of respondents said more than 7/10, with 34% scoring 7/10 and 30% scoring 8/10.
This result was very close to how retailers scored last year’s performance in terms of how successful they were, despite the current concerns about the economy and potential recession that has been looming. The majority of brands scored how successful they were in 2022 at 7/10 (30%), with 19% scoring it 8/10 and another 19% scoring last year at 9/10.
Director and co-founder at Vervaunt Paul Rogers said: “It’s positive for the industry to see that the majority of ecommerce brands are looking to acquire new customers as their top priority for 2023, as well as looking to make new hires, which both show that they are still confident around business growth.”
After acquiring new customers as a top priority for 2023, retailers also said increasing conversion rate (40%); entering new international markets (21%); increasing cost of sale and profitability (19%) and increasing customer lifetime value (19%).
When asked specifically what areas they would invest more in this year, retailers said: new customer acquisition (58%); paid search and social (27%): CRM (22%); data, analytics and insights (21%) and technology stack (19%).
When asked what areas they would invest less in this year, 39% of retailers said television advertising, followed by out of home advertising (33%); technology stack (31%); paid search and social (22%); and affiliate marketing (15%).
Vervaunt is a paid media and ecommerce consultancy who works with aspirational high-growth premium lifestyle brands. The Pulse Ecommerce Survey #1 is the first annual audit, and results will also be presented at their Pulse Ecommerce Summit ‘23 in June.
