Smart Home Drives Online Sales Jump in First 9 Months of 2016, Says NPD

Online consumer tech sales jumped 19 percent in the first nine months of 2017 vs. the comparable 2016 stretch, said NPD’s Checkout receipt mining service Monday. Direct-to-consumer (DTC) sales saw the largest growth, 34 percent, representing 13 percent of all e-commerce sales, it said. NPD cited an uptick in DTC sales in smart home, a new trend, with three of the top 10 e-commerce smart home merchants selling to customers via company websites. Smart home also saw growth online among traditional home improvement merchants, which posted three times the sales growth compared with the 2016 period, it said. Improved e-commerce methods paired with a surging DTC segment “can disrupt conventional notions about how consumers shop online,” said analyst Stephen Baker. NPD’s service includes first- and third-party sales for Amazon, Jet and Walmart.com, 400-plus e-commerce retailers including direct-to-consumer, and an early read on emerging players, it said. Information is collected from more than 3 million consumers, through data provided by NPD partner Slice Intelligence and NPD's proprietary receipt-harvesting mobile phone app.