Apps Resources Ecommerce is booming, but that’s nothing new. Global ecommerce sales add up to nearly $5.8 trillion, according to eMarketer. The ability to shop and buy pretty much anything online has been a fixture in our lives for a while now. In this article, we’ll put that into context and share what percentage of retail sales are online sales.
We’ll provide the most up-to-date statistics on both US as well as global markets and then break down the extent to which online shopping is prevalent across various countries and for multiple categories of products.
What Percentage of Retail Sales Are Online?
All over the world, ecommerce sales make up 19.5 percent of the $29.7 billion retail market.
This figure is a bit lower in the US in the US, where the percentage of e-commerce in all retail sales totals 16.4 percent.
Market share for online shopping has grown both globally as well as in the US from 2022 onwards, in comparison to last year’s figures, being 18.9 percent across the globe and 15 percent within the US.
Projected Growth of Ecommerce Market Share
Experts believe that ecommerce will continue to expand and slowly gain more share of the retail market in the next few years.
In the world, the share of ecommerce in retail sales is predicted to increase to 23% by 2027. Here are the projections for each year to 2027:
Although both markets are growing, their growth rates have been a bit slower than in the second half of the decade.
Ecommerce Sales Growth vs. Total Retail Sales Growth
To gain a better understanding of the way e-commerce has been increasing its market share over the last ten years and a half, let’s take a look at the year-on-year increase in both ecommerce as well as the entire retail industry.
Apart from the blip of 2020 caused by this pandemic, sales have increased steadily in single digits, with a slight decrease in the growth rate in most years.
Prior to the year 2020, the ecommerce market was growing at a rate of 20-30% a year. After the pandemic, it has slowed down to single digits, but ecommerce continues to expand at over two times the rate of retail in general.
Ecommerce Penetration by Country
Based on the eMarketer’s World Retail Ecommerce Outlook, China is the country with the largest share of online sales, with 47%, which is nearly 50% of the retail sales in China.
Two additional Asian markets are in the top 4, after which the averages fall off dramatically.
The Chinese market for e-commerce is one of the largest in the world. It is believed to be worth $3 trillion by 2023, more than three times the size of the US, which is the second-largest market for e-commerce.
Ecommerce Penetration by Category
Let’s also take a look at the proportion of sales made via e-commerce for a range of popular categories of goods.
The insights of Cowen reveal the latest trends in ecommerce usage for each product category within the US market.
Media (not including video games) is the top choice, with a whopping 78% of all sales for this segment coming from the Internet.
Toys/Hobby Games/Goods is second with 59%, and Office Equipment & Supplies and Electronics each have a 54% penetration of e-commerce.
On the lower end, Food & Beverage, Auto, and Garden Equipment/Supplies/Building Materials are all below the US average ecommerce share of retail sales. At the same time, all other categories also have a very low percentage of ecommerce sales.
Trends to Watch
While the initial surge has ended, e-commerce is growing and is gaining more share of the retail market slowly.
The projections suggest that the global e-commerce portion of retail sales is expected to increase from 19.5 percent to 22.2 percent from 2023 until 2026. It will also increase between 16.4 percent and 21.2 percent within the US.
We anticipate this trend to remain steady and non-spectacular. There are a few intriguing trends to keep in mind.
One of the reasons is the rise of e-commerce in emerging markets. Ecommerce is growing more rapidly in these regions in the globe than in other industries and at a faster rate than retail in general.
Southeast Asia leads the way in terms of e-commerce growth, rising 18.6 percent by 2023 compared to 7.7% for retail sales overall. Southeast Asia is ahead of the pack, but the Middle East and Africa are close behind, with a 16 percent growth in e-commerce compared to the overall rate of 6.
It is worth noting that the Latin America and Central and Eastern Europe regions are also experiencing growth of over 10 percent in online sales, while the Central and Eastern Europe regions are having almost no increase in retail sales.
The second is the expansion of mobile-based commerce. E-commerce used to be part of the retail industry, and mobile marketing is now doing the same as an additional subset of e-commerce.
Each year, more and more customers are opting to shop online using mobile phones. Retail online sales from m-commerce within the US are currently around $431 billion a year and are expected to rise to $710 billion by 2025.
Mobile eCommerce’s percentage of market shares is 38% of the entire online commerce industry in the US. The market is expected to grow to 48% in just two years.
Keep an eye out closely for the number that will reach 50% soon As more and more people choose the ultimate convenience of shopping via mobile devices.
