Despite decrease in web traffic, mass merchants online sales grew in 2022

Online sales for mass merchants increased in 2022 according to Digital Commerce 360 Top 1000 Database. Median conversion rate increased to 3.8% in 2022, up from 3.3% in 2021. But median monthly unique visitors plummeted 84% to 918,254 in 2022 compared with 2,245,115 median monthly unique visitors in 2021.

Monthly unique visitors declined but the median average ticket increased a substantial 24% — well above the 6.5% inflation rate year over year in December 2022 — to $130 in 2022, compared with $102 in 2021.

Mass merchant sales reach $376.17 billion in 2022

Online sales among Top 1000 mass merchants grew to $376.17 billion in 2022. Those sales made up 45.3% of total combined in-store and online sales in the category. That’s an increase of 2% from the 44.3% penetration the year prior.

The top five retailers in the category held steady in 2022, albeit at a more subdued pace for Amazon.com Inc., which grew 2.2% in 2022, compared with 17.9% growth in 2021. Walmart Inc. increased web sales by 12.2%, holding steady against its 12.8% growth in 2021. Target Corp.’s online sales slowed with 1.2% growth in 2022, compared with 19.5% growth in 2021. Costco Wholesale Corp. increased web sales by 16.0% in 2022, from 37.3% in 2021. Qurate Retail Group was the only mass merchant in the top five to decrease web sales 14.5% in 2022, after experiencing decline of 0.7% in web sales in 2021.

Mass merchant online sales grew 5.6%, outpacing the growth rate of total U.S. retail sales (3.3%), according to a Digital Commerce 360 analysis of U.S. Department of Commerce retail data.