Which Durable Goods Are Winning Ecommerce Sales?

Since before the beginning of the quarantine, consumer behavior and preferences have changed. It’s been a challenge for online retailers to adapt, especially amid continuing supply chain concerns.

Fast forward to today’s environment and the impact has become a little clearer. For retailers, watching ecommerce trends and keeping track of evolving dynamics between online shopping vs in-store shopping has become crucial.

In this article, we’ll look at the current state of the consumer durables industry and identify the top categories for who’s winning when it comes to online market share vs. in-store market share, and share statistics on online shopping vs in-store shopping.

Online Shopping Statistics

As you’d expect, online purchases have risen steadily over the past decade. While there started to be some stabilization in 2018 and 2019, the pandemic changed that, leading to a significant resurgence in online sales of all groups of durable products.

Around Q2 2022, most categories saw year-over-year declines that signaled consumers returning to doing at least some shopping in-store. Still, online sales by unit continue to rise, while in-store purchases decline overall.

Durable Goods Most Purchased Online

Online shopping consumer insights from TraQline Durable IQ™ show that the following categories are most sold units online and helped boost the ecommerce market in the US during Q3 2022.

On the flip side, the top two in-store purchase categories for Q3 2022 were:

• Automotive products
• Hand tools

Category Breakdowns by Retailer

Here’s how market share breaks down across several key categories.

For more details on increases and decreases in market share, email us at info@traqline.com!

Sports Equipment

When shopping sports equipment, 85% of consumers shop online, and 68% go on to purchase online.

Online market share (dollars) by retailer:

• Peloton — 35%
• Amazon — 24%
• Internet (Other) — 10%
• Walmart — 3%
• Dick’s Sporting Goods — 1%

In-store market share (dollars) by retailer:

• Peloton — 24%
• Dick’s Sporting Goods — 16%
• Walmart — 10%

Computers

While more than three-quarters of consumers shop online for computers, laptops, printers, and other similar products, only 54% made their purchase online.

There are also significant trends emerging across different retailers. For example, Amazon grew its market share significantly for online computer sales while Costco significantly increased its in-store market share.

Communication

Two-thirds of consumers shopped online before making cell phone, GPS, or cordless telephone purchases, but sales were split fairly even when it comes to whether these products were purchased online or in-store. While 49% of consumers bought online, online purchasing did see a 2 point drop YOY.

On the retailer side, Best Buy suffered a significant drop in market share for in-store sales in Q3 2022, falling behind Walmart.

Furniture & Home Accessories

When looking for new furniture or home accessories, 59% of consumers browse online. While the majority of consumers buy in-store, 41% complete purchases online. This represents a significant 2% shift toward online sales from last year.

The biggest retailer gaining online market share for furniture and home accessories was Amazon, which significantly increased its market share YOY, and continues to dominate the online category.

Small Appliances

While small appliance purchases still predominantly happen in-store, the share of consumers buying online grew by 2 points over last year to reach 39%.

Amazon again grew its online market share while Costco had a significant increase in in-store market share.

Consumer Electronics

When purchasing consumer electronics, 44% of goods were made online, exhibiting no change from prior years.

Amazon and Costco significantly increased market share online, while Apple showed marked decreases in offline sales.

Notably, 12% of online buyers also took advantage of ship-to-store for consumer electronics, a larger share than all but one other category.

Automotive

Automotive is one category still dominated by in-store sales. Only 25% shopped online while just 8% purchased online. Of those that did buy online, 54% opted for ship to store.

Discount Tire and Auto Zone increased their online market share. Auto Zone also increased its in-store market share. Firestone significantly decreased its market share online.

Hand Tools & Accessories

Hand tools and accessories is another product category where consumers still prefer in-store purchases. While 26% of consumers shopped online for hand tools, only 15% completed their purchases through ecommerce.

However, there were some big moves in Q3 2022 regarding where consumers purchased. Harbor Freight significantly increased its online market share for hand tools sales, while Home Depot significantly increased its in-store market share. Walmart saw a decrease in online hand tools sales, while Lowes, Walmart, and Amazon significantly decreased their market share in-store.

Buyer Behavior Is Constantly Changing

TraQline® is the leader in market share data and competitive insight for the consumer durables industry, providing the data and resources clients need to better understand consumer buying behavior. This allows companies to stay on top of evolving trends and make more profitable business decisions.