Clear victory for online marketing among webshops

2018. 04. 04.

As much as 93% of Hungarian webshops use online marketing tools of some kind, while only half of them take advantage of offline solutions. Search engine optimisation and paid advertisements are the favourite online marketing tools; they are used by the highest percentage of online stores and are considered to be the most effective. Presence in social media is almost self-evident now; eight out of 10 webshops are on Facebook. Most online stores still launch their marketing campaigns before Christmas and Black Friday, claims eNET’s survey looking into the marketing activities of webshops.Offline marketing? Online channels preferred instead

Half of all online stores have only one person dealing with marketing. As to the operation of the webshops, most businesses (81%) run their own web site and handle their own hosting. Presence on search, social and price comparison sites is the most popular of online platforms, but more and more companies enter electronic marketplaces. According to the survey respondents, the following online marketing tools are deemed the most effective:

  1. search optimisation;
  2. paid advertisements;
  3. remarketing.

More than 80% of webshops use a web analytics tool to measure and evaluate their website traffic, conversions and sales.

Social power

When it comes to their presence in social media, the vast majority of webshops still choose Facebook. Many companies are also there on Google+ and Youtube, and Instagram is gaining popularity among online stores. As to the perceived effectiveness of social media sites, Facebook leads, followed by Youtube and Instagram.

More than half of the respondents claim that the primary goal of their presence in social media is to communicate current offers to (potential) customers. Brand awareness and sales growth are further key objectives.

Even though more and more webshops use social media for marketing purposes, they are not unanimously satisfied. Six out of 10 online stores hold generally positive views of social media sites, but only 10% are fully satisfied with them.Free home delivery no longer so popular

Almost all online stores now use sales promotion. Most lure customers with discounts and free delivery, even though the latter has lost some of its former popularity. Last year, an increased number of webshops employed discounts, coupons, package offers and loyalty bonuses.

Two shopping sprees a year: Black Friday and Christmas

More and more webshops launch marketing campaigns at various times of the year. Unsurprisingly, Christmas remains the prime sales period, but Black Friday – which essentially signals the start of the Christmas season – is more and more popular. Its importance to Hungarian online stores is growing year by year; in fact, it has become almost as popular as Christmas. And more webshops are expected to announce special Black Friday offers in future. But webshops’ interest in all special sales periods is growing, which makes it more difficult for online stores to stand out from the multitude of offers.

PC continues to reign supreme…

… and this may not change for a while. The bulk of site visitors, transactions and online sales comes from laptop and desktop computers. But almost half of the visitors now also use mobile devices to browse the inventories of online stores.

More than four fifths of webshops have a site optimised for mobile devices, but only 20% have their own mobile application. In this latter group, the preferred operating system is Android, but iOS is widely supported, too.

eNET

The survey was conducted by eNET among Hungarian webshops in September 2017. Services sold online were not in the scope.

Webshop: a retail business selling goods over the internet via a Hungarian-language site, involving online orders and products placed in online “carts”.