Metrics That Matter: Retail Industry Benchmarks for 2018

By Bonnie Malone

How does my email program performance compare to others in my industry? Are the trends my business is experiencing in line with other retailers? Was the huge dip in sales specific to my program, or are my competitors having similar challenges? Is email even still relevant as a marketing channel?

These are just a few of the questions I hear on a regular basis from clients striving to understand and optimize their email performance. Knowing how macro trends are impacting your brand isn’t always easy. Benchmarks and metrics are often tough to find, especially when you're down to the wire justifying your 2018 budgets and resource requests. Therefore, I’ll share a collection of helpful industry benchmarks with you, and next month we’ll review the latest email performance metrics.

According to eMarketer, the retail e-commerce sales forecast for 2018 is $521.58 billion. This is up 15 percent from $452.76 in 2017. It’s important for retail marketers to understand this forecast and how it’s trending, as this will help to align expectations and justify continued investment in the channel. Forecasts for specific segments of the retail market are as follows:

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Bonnie Malone Author's page

Bonnie is passionate about excellent customer experience. With a background in marketing, merchandise buying and retail management, she helps companies stay relevant amid the changing digital landscape. Bonnie leads the knowledge and consulting teams at Return Path, the global leader in email deliverability. She is an active Email Experience Council committee member, featured speaker for events, and writes monthly for the Return Path blog and Total Retail.