The e-commerce boom is over. At the peak of the pandemic, as we all bought exercise equipment to ignore and houseplants to neglect, the e-commerce industry was one of the major beneficiaries. But online shopping is yet another pandemic trend that seems to be unwinding — the official data shows that the share of retail dollars that are spent online has fallen again in early 2022, sending online retail sales back towards the pre-pandemic trajectory.
Abandon cart
One company that is painfully aware of the change in habits is Shopify. The tech company, which provides online stores with tools and software to run their business, reported another set of underwhelming results this week with CEO Tobi Lutke sharing that 1,000 employees would be let go — cutting the company's workforce by some 10%. Shopify has seen its market cap. fall almost 80% in the last year, wiping out some $160bn of value.
Misery loves company
Although one of the worst affected, Shopify isn't alone in its misery. Yesterday, amidst what was actually a better-than-expected quarter, Amazon declared another 4% annual decline in online sales — the second time in a row that the e-commerce giant has seen its online sales slip.
