• Understand the current overall spending power as well as the online/digital spending behavior of generations from the Baby Boomers through Gen A.
• Determine the impact of direct-to-consumer (DTC) brands, such as spending on DTC vs traditional retail and/or differences in consumer relationships with DTC companies.
• Obtain information/statistics that support the case for future growth in online spending, including any evidence for the position that the pandemic will have lasting, positive impacts on digital sales.
• Detail how middle market and startup ecommerce companies are expanding as evidence of market support for the ecommerce industry. Include WooCommerce as an example.
• Reference the current version of the pitch deck (link here) for examples of helpful information.

Data Availability

• The initial round of research indicates that information/statistics that support the case for future growth in online spending is available in the public domain.
• Similarly, data on how middle market and startup ecommerce companies are expanding is publicly available.
• However, preliminary research indicates that data on the current overall spending power as well as the online/digital spending behavior of generations on a global basis is unavailable. Relevant data sources are either dated or limited to a United States focus.
• Additionally, while information on the general impact of direct-to-consumer (DTC) brands, such as differences in consumer relationships with DTC companies, is available, more specific details on the difference in spending on DTC vs traditional retail brands is unavailable for the global market.

Growth in Online Spending

• Statista reported as of February 2022 that worldwide ecommerce spending is expected to "grow by 50 percent over the next four years," from $4.938 trillion in 2021 to $7.391 trillion dollars in 2025.

Middle Market/Startup Companies

• WooCommerce has expanded to become a leader in the global ecommerce industry, now supporting 4,414,537 live websites, 28.19% of digital stores and "22% of the top 1 million ecommerce sites."
• Notably, this growth has been steady over recent years and throughout the pandemic, as evidenced by the portion of websites using the plugin. Specifically, 7.4% of websites worldwide now use WooCommerce, up from 4.7% in 2019 and 5.7% in 2018.

Generational Spending

• Generation X currently leads annual spending in the United States, with an average annual household expenditure of $75,087, compared with Millennials ($61,236), Baby Boomers ($59,131), The Silent Generation ($41,206) and Generation Z ($36,512).
• However, Millennials lead other generations in digital spending, with Americans between the ages of 25-34 accounting for 20.2% of digital buyers in the country in 2020.

DTC Brands

• More than one-third of global consumers currently purchase goods/services directly from a manufacturer's website.
• Moreover, over half (55%) of consumers prefer to shop directly with brands versus using multi-brand retailers.
• Meanwhile, nearly half of internet users anticipate purchasing between 20% and 59% of all goods and services from DTC brands in the next five years.

Summary

• Based on data availability, we anticipate being able to fully address the research requests for (1) information/statistics that support the case for future growth in online spending and (2) data on how middle market and startup ecommerce companies are expanding.
• Due to the unavailability of current, global data on the spending power and digital spending behavior by generation, we recommend pivoting to focus this research request to the United States, as detailed further below.
• Similarly, given that data regarding spending on DTC vs traditional retail brands is unavailable for the global market, we recommend pivoting to focus more generally on the impacts, prevalence and consumer perceptions related to DTC brands.