E-commerce Q2 2022 Review: Slimming Down — Part 1

The e-commerce Covid hangover continues. During the second quarter, industry growth decelerated broadly. Below, a look at key themes and macro trends from Q2 2022 e-commerce results.

Medium Term Optimistic

The Covid hangover continues. E-commerce mushroomed in 2020 and 2021, as lockdowns shut stores and people sheltered at home. Today, consumers have more options for where to spend their money: online or offline, goods or services. Travel is booming (recent security lines at JFK are some of the worst I’ve ever seen) and restaurants are full. Reopening is driving a shift in consumption from goods to services and from online to offline. Additionally, while competition for spending is increasing, persistent inflation is eating away at discretionary spending power. For e-commerce companies, that’s a double whammy.

Industry growth reflects this challenging operating environment, which eBay’s CFO described as the most challenging in recent memory. During the second quarter, e-commerce growth decelerated broadly. (In addition to the dynamics above, a strong US dollar pressured headline growth rates for US businesses with significant international exposure.) A number of companies — including eBay, Etsy, and Wayfair as well as Amazon’s first-party online sales — declined outright. Similar to the first quarter, marketplaces selling apparel like Poshmark, The RealReal, and ThredUp posted the best growth, while at-home categories like furniture struggled.