The biggest e-commerce focus for 2022 is…

A new survey reveals the plans e-commerce executives have for this year.

According to the “2022 eCommerce Executive Key Initiatives Survey Report,” a survey of 128 e-commerce executives across a variety of verticals from Yottaa, more than half of survey respondents said their brands experienced online revenue growth of between 26% and 50% in 2021. Almost nine in 10 (87%) respondents are looking for year-over-year increases in conversion rates of between 5% and 15% in 2022.

More than half (56%) of respondents said maximizing return on e-commerce technology investments (56%) is a top e-commerce initiative. Other top e-commerce priorities for 2022 include optimizing shoppers’ digital experiences (48%) and decreasing page load times (47%).

More than four in 10 (43%) respondents stated that their brands are re-platforming. The top five choices for new e-commerce platforms are Salesforce Commerce Cloud, Netsuite, Oracle Commerce Cloud, SAP Hybris, and Shopify Plus.

Interestingly, in 2021, 33% of respondents to this annual survey viewed Amazon as a competitor. In the 2022 edition of the survey, only 11% of respondents view the e-tail giant as a competitive threat, with 57% stating that recent innovation and investments in e-commerce sites and digital experience have leveled the playing field for brands to compete with Amazon.

Looking at planned e-commerce investments for 2022, the survey found that roughly eight in 10 respondents are investing 25% to 50% more in customer acquisition than in previous years. That’s an increase of $125,000 per month for the average respondents. Survey respondents also stated they are planning to spend between $300,000 and $450,000 per month on customer acquisition.

Other interesting findings include:

• Respondents are investing more in customer acquisition, data security, improving site speed, and site analytics.

• Over 86% of respondents acknowledge that site speed is one of the most important factors in e-commerce success.

Retailers eye site traffic, Amazon
According to a January 2022 survey of e-commerce retailers from RSR Research and Coveo Solutions, acquiring new site traffic is the top (83%) priority, significantly more so than driving more onsite conversions (59%).

That survey also indicated that Amazon is more of a universal e-commerce competitor than the findings of the new Yottaa survey suggest. When asked for their strategy to compete with Amazon, over half (55%) of respondents to the RSR Research study said they make everything available on their own site also available on Amazon. Another 23% sell part of their product line via Amazon, and 6% sell through Amazon in certain geographies.

Of the remaining 16% that do not currently sell through Amazon, 10% are considering doing so and only 6% have no plans to ever sell via Amazon. The survey also revealed that the single-largest starting point for respondents’ customer shopping journeys is Amazon (34%), followed by their own websites (28%).

“After the unprecedented, explosive growth of 2020 and 2021, online brands are squarely focused on continuing growth in 2022,” said Rich Stendardo, CEO of Yottaa. “The key initiatives outlined in this report, from increasing customer acquisition spend to improving page load speeds, will help all online brands achieve their growth goals in the next 12 months.”