eCommerce News Weekly Update Vol 38.

This week we prepared five eCommerce news for you to catch up with.

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2. Global supply chain pressures ease in February

Global supply chain pressures eased in February as backlogs and delivery times improved in several key markets and measures of seaborne costs declined, according to new data released Thursday by the New York Fed.

If this continues, it will perhaps be an important turning point for the Federal Reserve and other central banks in their efforts to control inflation.

Policymakers have attributed much of the recent price increases to world supply chain problems. If these problems improve over time, inflation may ease, and central banks will have done relatively little to address the problem by raising interest rates to curb demand.

2. Product Selection: The hottest selling categories for 2021 released

Recently, the foreign media Wicked Reports compiled data from the Statista e-commerce market in 2021, ranked the categories according to their revenues, of which the top sales categories are as follows.

Fashion category: $180.5 billion in total sales in 2021, up 24.7% from 2020.

Electronics: total sales of $161 billion in 2021, up 12.6% from 2020.

Toys, DIY, hobby: total sales of $105.6 billion in 2021, up 14.3% from 2020.

Home furnishings: $132.7 billion in 2021, up 10.9% from 2020.

3. Multi-category growth! Annual sales of office supplies in the US reach $14.5 billion

Recently, research firm NPD announced the sales of the office supplies industry in the US for 2021. Overall, sales showed double-digit growth last year.

NPD's figures show that the US office supplies industry (excluding cleaning and breakroom supplies) will reach US$14.5 billion in sales in 2021,

up 11% on the previous year and 12% in 2019, with NPD saying that the growth is due to a return to consumer interest in some products that suffered a "lull" in 2020. In addition, higher average sales prices were also a factor.

4. Etsy transaction fees to rise in April

Etsy has announced that it will increase its transaction fees from 5% to 6.5% starting April 11, 2022.

The company said the majority of the incremental revenue from this fee increase will be invested in three areas: marketing and consumption, seller tools, and improving the customer experience.

As the impact of the epidemic slowly subsides, Etsy is looking to further increase revenue on the platform, in addition to continuing to attract buyers' interest in shopping.

Figures show that the platform saw a 16.2% year-on-year revenue increase in the fourth quarter alone. But in order to achieve this, it needs to invest, which is one of the reasons for the platform's commission hike.

5. US children's products industry sees growth in the post-epidemic era

According to the NPD Group, the US children's products industry is set to grow by 13% in 2021, with unit sales also showing year-on-year growth of 8% compared to 2020.

Within six categories, the top performer was the children's travel category, which grew by 20% year on year, followed by the children's feeding and children's bead and bath categories, each with sales growth of 17% over the previous year.

This was followed by the children's feeding and children's bead and bath categories, with sales up by 17% and 13% respectively compared to the previous year.

There is no doubt that as the epidemic improves, consumer demand for children's products, including outdoor recreation products, will rise again.