• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, May 9, 2024

Consumers spent $331.6 billion online from January 1 through April 30, 2024 -- up 7% year-over-year (YoY) -- but have been buying less expensive goods across major ecommerce categories just to keep spending on the products they need. The shift triggers a need for advertisers to revisit messages. 

The online shopping data released Thursday from Adobe Analytics analyzes U.S. ecommerce purchases from January 1, through April 30, 2024. It aggregates data on more than one trillion visits to U.S. retail sites, 100 million SKUs and 18 product categories.

The growth appears to be stable, according to Adobe, and is spent mostly in discretionary categories such as electronics and apparel, along with a continued surge in grocery shopping online.

Retail media continues to go through interesting changes. Vivek Pandya, lead insights analyst at Adobe, said the company is seeing a “pronounced strength with affiliate marketing as an inbound channel, which is indicative of price conscious shoppers taking advantage of promotions and discounts provided by affiliates.”

Emarketer predicts U.S. ad spend on off-site retail media will grow 61.5% to reach $10.64 billion this year. That number will more than double during the next four years, reaching $28.05 billion by 2028, making up about 21.8% of total retail media network ad spend.

Adobe expects the first half of 2024 to drive more than $500 billion in spend online, representing 6.8% YoY growth.

In the first four months of the year, consumers spent $61.8 billion online for electronics -- up 3.1% YoY -- and $52.5 billion for apparel, up 2.6% YoY.

Both categories account for 34.5% of overall ecommerce spend, which helped to maintain growth. Groceries drove $38.8 billion online and rose significantly at 15.7% YoY growth.

Consumers spent $13.2 billion online for cosmetics in 2024 to date, up 8% YoY. In 2023, the category drove $35 billion in online spend.

Consumers are buying less expensive goods due to persistent inflation. For each category tracked by Adobe, prices were separated into four quartiles from the highest to lowest prices. Shares of units sold in the most expensive and least expensive quartiles were then tracked from January 2019 to April 2024.

Adobe found that the share of the least expensive goods increased significantly across categories. Personal care rose 96%, while electronics rose 64%, apparel rose 47%, home and garden rose 42%, furniture and bedding rose 42%, and groceries rose 33%.

The data also shows that the share of cheapest goods rose less -- with a significant boost from brand loyalty or a strong consumer desire to invest in products of the highest quality. Sporting goods rose 28%, appliances rose 26%, tools and home improvement rose 26%, and toys rose 25%.

Within a category like groceries, the data showed that goods with low inflation saw revenue rise by 13.4%, while products with high inflation saw revenue drop by 15.6%.