Despite the popularity of retail curbside pickup, at-home delivery "remains king for shoppers,” reported Pitney Bowes Wednesday. Morning Consult canvassed 2,000 online shoppers for Pitney Bowes, finding 64% of consumers prefer home delivery vs. 23% for curbside pickup when given the two options. An exception was for grocery deliveries: 44% preferred curbside to 39% for home delivery. About three-quarters of baby boomers prefer delivery over curbside, it said. Two factors that drive the choice for home delivery over curbside pickup are free shipping and flexible delivery times, said the company. Some 64% of e-commerce shoppers said free delivery on home shipping influences their decision to use that fulfillment feature; 38% would opt for curbside pickup for online purchases, other than groceries, as a way to get items without paying shipping costs, it said. Some 37% said they would opt for curbside pickup to receive an item faster. A question on estimated delivery dates showed 59% of shoppers said early deliveries are an inconvenience. Reasons included not being home on the delivery day and “being uncomfortable with deliveries sitting out,” it said.

Walmart+ grew by about 2 million members in the holiday quarter ended January, emailed Consumer Intelligence Research Partners Thursday. They spent an average $79 per visit to Walmart.com vs. $62 for nonmembers, though shopping frequency declined from its July peak, said analyst Mike Levin, citing evolving COVID-19 pandemic shopping habits. Walmart+ members were more than a quarter of Walmart.com shoppers for the first time in January; they shopped online an average 29 times per year vs. 18 times for nonmembers, CIRP said.

Though 2021 was “one of the strongest years in PayPal’s history,” with 18% year-over-year revenue growth to $25.4 billion, “exogenous” factors “did impact our results,” said CEO Dan Schulman on a Q4 call Tuesday. “Supply chain issues disproportionately impacted our cross-border volumes and our small business merchants,” while inflationary pressures “impacted spending within certain segments of our user base,” he said. Rising threats from COVID-19's delta and omicron variants cut travel and event bookings, and the elimination of government stimulus “had an impact as well” on consumer spending, said Schulman. “E-commerce growth rates during the holiday season were lower than industry expectations despite a strong two-year growth rate of almost 50%, and we are also lapping some of the strongest quarters of growth in our history. Even so, we once again grew our market share and came within our revenue guidance for the quarter.” The stock plunged 24.6% Wednesday, closing at $132.57.

E-commerce via YouTube is an “additional layer of opportunity” for Google, but an area “where it all feels very early to me,” said Alphabet and Google CEO Sundar Pichai on a Q4 call Tuesday. “We’re making it easier for viewers to buy what they see and simpler for advertisers to drive action with innovative solutions like product feeds and video action campaigns and emerging formats like live commerce.” YouTube’s commerce capability is focused on “onboarding merchants and all the back end so that we can have the broadest and the most comprehensive inventory available,” said Pichai. “Our partnership with other e-commerce platforms is a basic foundational layer we are putting in.” Though it’s “pretty early” in the initiative, “there’s a lot of pilots underway,” including “shopping livestreams” with brands like Walmart and Target, he said. “There’s a lot more to do,” he said, “but I find the opportunity space here pretty broad, and it’s exciting.”

The COVID-19 pandemic likely fortified U.S. Amazon Prime renewal rates, which had been slowing before the onset of the health crisis, emailed Consumer Intelligence Research Partners Tuesday. Prime membership continued to rise in 2021, following a 2020 spike in online shopping. Prime membership was 172 million in December, it said, after adding about 30 million members each year. Prime membership conversion and retention rates diverged: Conversion of 30-day trials decreased somewhat as the monthly payment plan grew more popular, making it easier to cancel a subscription and re-up later; retention grew, with the two-year renewal rate reaching 98% in December, CIRP said.

Summit Wireless Q4 sales of about $2 million brought full-year totals to more than $6.5 million, up 170% from 2020, said the company in a preliminary report Tuesday. The company’s spatial audio technology and the WiSA Wave program are driving growth, said CEO Brett Moyer. In 2022, management expects to continue to build the brand by expanding the WiSA Wave effort to Europe and China, increasing website visitors to 3 million-5 million and launching more products. Summit is due to report Q4 results next month. Shares reached a 52-week low Tuesday at $1.16 before closing down 4.5% at $1.28.

Global e-commerce payment transactions will exceed $7.5 trillion in value by 2026, from $4.9 trillion in 2021, reported Juniper Research Monday. It credits the anticipated 55% growth on retailers’ expanding use of “omnichannel” selling that will fuel higher user e-commerce spend. Juniper estimates 37% of global e-commerce by transaction value will reside in China by 2026. Physical goods will be 82% of global e-commerce payments transaction value by 2026 that same year.

“Baseline” forecasts for e-commerce growth through 2026 “exceed anything seen in the prior six or more years,” reported ABI Research Thursday. It’s projecting global e-commerce revenue will reach $8 trillion in 2026, from $560 billion in 2020, noting the “explosive” growth potential “underscores the need for supply chains to become more flexible and agile to address future disruptions and create more resilient value chains.” The COVID-19 pandemic exposed the weaknesses of “fragmented, regionally dependent, and inflexible supply chains,” said ABI analyst Susan Beardslee. “Even as current challenges subside, new, and potentially unforeseen challenges will become the norm, and companies will need to ensure supply under a more volatile business landscape.”

More than 130,000 third-party sellers surpassed $100,000 in sales on Amazon this holiday season, blogged Amazon Wednesday. U.S.-based third-party sellers sold an average of 11,500 products per minute between Black Friday and Christmas, it said. Top categories for sales from Amazon’s third-party sellers included cameras and home office and wine-related products. The company spent over $100 million during Prime Day and through the holiday season to help small- and medium-sized businesses reach more customers, it said.

Amazon plans to expand its Phoenix Tech Hub, adding more than 550 corporate and tech jobs in Tempe, Arizona, over the next few years, adding to the 5,000 corporate and tech jobs it now has in the Phoenix area, it said Tuesday. The new roles -- software development engineers, senior solution architects, project managers and business analysts -- will support teams in consumer retail, Amazon Web Services, and operations, it said. Amazon is building a 63,000-square-foot expansion at its existing offices in Tempe that’s set to open late next year. The company referenced two programs it launched to attract employees: Amazon Returnship, a 16-week program to help professionals get back to work after they have lost or left a job, and Best Fit, a program that allows software engineers to be considered for “thousands” of jobs across hundreds of teams within the company via one application process. Amazon also plans to create 3,000 jobs in Austin, Chicago and Phoenix in coming years.