E-commerce continues to grow: New business figures from Shopify, Bike24 and Mirakl reveal trends in online retail

Shopify's latest quarterly figures show that e-commerce is still on a growth trend, but the outlook for sales was lower than expected.

Bike24 continues to grow through massive discounts, but with profitability at the lower end of expectations.

Mirakl's figures show that the trend towards platform business models in e-commerce continues unabated, particularly in the B2B sector.

E-Commerce Shopify, Bike24, Mirakl quarterly figures 2022

E-commerce continues to grow - this is the conclusion drawn from Shopify's latest quarterly figures. Compared to the previous year, the company increased its total sales by 21 percent. However, GMV (Gross Merchandise Volume), i.e. the total value of all sales processed via Shopify, only grew by 12 percent. It should be emphasized that Shopify generated more fees from its Shopify Plus customers in particular.

However, Shopify also needs large retailers in order to maintain growth. Against this backdrop, the enterprise class product Commerce Components also becomes relevant. Shopify CEO Tobi's top priorities for 2023 are faster deliveries and efficiency - but not as radical as Amazon.

However, the sales outlook was lower than analysts had expected. The stock market reacted to this with a fall in the share price. But Shopify has a plan, the turnaround has worked, costs have been contained and are to be further optimized. All in all, the company is doing a lot of things right.

Bike24 is also continuing to grow, albeit through massive discounts and with profitability at the lower end of expectations. On a positive note, however, Bike24 is forecast to grow by 4.5% to annual sales of EUR 262 million in 2022.

The figures from Mirakl are also interesting. They show that the trend towards platform business models in e-commerce is unbroken. And that's not all: B2B sales are the growth driver with an increase of 76% YoY (year over year) compared to 38% for B2C sales.

Growth in e-commerce is therefore unbroken - but it still depends heavily on the business model and the sector. And companies like Shopify will continue to put pressure on other enterprise e-commerce systems.