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Given that the cyberspace is 1 of the fastest and cheapest ways to send information long distances, information technology’southward no surprise that people made retail websites to take advantage of this new engineering. Yet, you tin can simply encounter how far it has come by looking at some online shopping statistics.
Cardinal Takeaways:
- Global e-commerce sales are expected to hitting $5.five trillion in 2022.17
- Around 76% of U.Southward. adults shop online.iv
- Over half of consumers adopt shopping in a physical store.4
- Smartphones are slowly becoming the preferred way to gild online.1
The due east-commerce industry and online shopping effectively embrace all purchases that are made over the internet. Between stores moving online, 3rd-political party marketplaces and increasing cyberspace access across the world, these
online sales have become worth trillions each year.1
Stores have always tracked sales information, where their acquirement comes from, and customer trends, so it makes sense that companies also watch like e-commerce trends now that they’re worth and so much. Luckily, many of these statistics are available for free, so nosotros’ve collected 24 of the most interesting ones here.

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02/xvi/2022
Facts checked
past Eugenie TiuSources verified.
Updated article statistics to ensure all of the information was upward-to-date.
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In the U.South., simply over 13% of total value traded is done online, when accounting for seasonal changes.[7]
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Just over 2 billion unique people made at least one online purchase in 2020, co-ordinate to Statista. [xiii] Additionally, e-commerce saw a 31% increase in growth from 2019 to 2020, but information technology returned to a normal level of growth in 2021, with a fourteen% increase. [2]
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With merely over ii billion shoppers and effectually 7.8 billion people in the world in 2020, approximately 26% of the world’south population was shopping online. [13] [14]
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In the U.S., around 18% of adults say they shop online at least once a week, compared to 57% who say they shop online less than once a month. The PwC institute that in December 2021, 55% of Americans shopped in-store at least in one case a calendar week, so it’south clear that the vast bulk are all the same choosing to store in-store rather than online for their more than regular purchases.[iv][nineteen]

Online shopping is increasing, but it’s non the become-to option yet.
When you’re online, companies are constantly collecting data about yous — you tin can read up on some information privacy statistics to detect out more well-nigh this. Evidently, this isn’t great for individual privacy, but it does mean that at that place are plenty of interesting statistics to go through, then we’ll spring straight in to look at how east-commerce has grown and how much it might grow in the future.

People all around the globe engage in online shopping.
Without a doubt, online shopping is widespread and pretty big, and then these first six statistics will get into the truthful scale of how many people are online and how much money is spent on these sites.
1. How Big Is Online Shopping?
The year 2021 saw annual retail east-commerce sales pass $4.9 trillion worldwide, and eMarketer predicts it will
grow to over $five.v trillion
by the finish of 2022.17
That’s more than the Gross domestic product of Germany (approximately $4.2 trillion in 2021) and Japan (approximately $5.1 trillion in 2021).
2. How Many People Are Shopping Online?
In 2021 there volition exist around
2.14 billion unique online shoppers
around the earth.ii
This means that over a quarter of the global population are internet users with admission to at least one e-commerce site, and they’ve decided to make at least one purchase online.
Taking into consideration that only 60% of the world population has admission to the internet,15
that means merely nether one-half the world population with an internet connection apply it to shop online.
3. How Big Is Online Shopping in the U.S.?
E-commerce revenue in the U.S.
passed the $400 billion mark for the first fourth dimension in 2020, reaching
$431.6 billion. This is about a 20% increment from the total acquirement in 2019, which was $360.1 billion.3
4. How Much Will Online Shopping Grow?
Although we can’t know for sure how much online buyers will spend in the future, Statista predicts that retail
e-commerce revenue will laissez passer the $500 billion mark
in 2022. It’s also estimated that, past 2025, online shops will generate about $563.4 billion in revenue.iii
five. How Many Americans Are Shopping Online?
Given the loftier value of all retail e-commerce sales, information technology may come as no surprise that — fifty-fifty in 2018 — Marist Poll found that 76% of U.S. adults were online shoppers. Of this 76% of U.S. adults, 62% were considered regular online shoppers — people who buy something online more often than once a month.iv
vi. How Ofttimes Are Americans Online?
If you want to buy something online, you have to use the internet. Yet, according to a 2021 Pew Inquiry Heart study,
vii% of U.S. adults never go online, and are therefore unable to admission an online store.v
On the other hand, 85% of respondents said they went online at least once per day, with 31% saying they were almost constantly online. Although this doesn’t guarantee they’ll use online stores, information technology does mean that almost Americans have the potential to become online shoppers at some indicate.

How does shopping compare: online vs in store?
Although online shopping seems to be the future, these next statistics show that many people still like going into a store to see physical goods.
vii. How Often Do People Shop Online?
Online retail stores often make it easier to buy things individually, every bit you lot don’t have to go out of your way to go to the shops and many sites offer complimentary shipping. Nevertheless, the IPC surveyed people across xl countries and found that only 22% of respondents shopped online every week. Instead, about people shopped online once every ii weeks (27%) or in one case a month (29%).
18
This 2021 IPC survey also found that 74% of people thought that more of their domestic purchases would exist done online in the futurity. In dissimilarity, only 5% idea that this would go down.
8. Practise People Prefer to Shop in-Store?
The 2018 Marist Poll report constitute that
56% of Americans adopt shopping in a concrete store
than online, if everything is equal. However, being able to shop at any time (64%), to observe the particular easily (62%) and to save time (61%) were all major reasons that could lead to people choosing to store online.4
On the other hand, the BigCommerce and PayPal 2021 consumer spending study plant that only 54.5% of Americans preferred shopping in person, and 12.ii% didn’t care either way. This could just be a temporary drop, but if the trend continues, online shopping could quickly become America’southward preferred way to shop.6
9. How Does E-Commerce Compare to Traditional Sales?
A census by the U.Due south. Department of Commerce institute that in the third quarter of 2021,
online retailers fabricated upwardly 12.four% of full retail sales
in terms of value, or 13% when bookkeeping for seasonal variations.7
This is lower than the 13.8% of adjusted sales that occurred online in the third quarter of 2020. All the same, online shopping saw a boost of 36.3% betwixt the third quarters of 2019 and 2020 — likely due to the Covid-19 pandemic — and the total sales only merely started to increment at the beginning of 2021 equally lockdown restrictions eased and offline business began picking upwards again.

Covid-nineteen has affected online shopping, merely so do the holidays.
There are certain events that cause a spike in shopping, in-general: the holiday flavor, as well as the Covid-19 pandemic. Here are some statistics related to these shopping events.
10. How Much Does Shopping Increase in the Vacation Season?
According to the 2021 holiday shopping study by Adobe, Nov and December saw Americans spend $204 billion online — a total of 8.half-dozen% more than in 2020. Although this is the nearly ever spent in the holiday period, it’due south also the smallest yr-over-year growth since Adobe began recording it in 2014. 15
11. How Big Is Black Friday & Cyber Monday For Online Shopping?
Although Black Friday and Cyber Monday were still two of the biggest days for online shopping in 2021, both shrank compared to 2020. Falling by ane.3% and one.4%, respectively, Black Friday saw just $viii.nine billion and Cyber Monday saw $10.75 billion in full U.Due south. sales.
Over the “Cyber v” days, simply Thanksgiving saw positive growth in 2021. With $5.i billion in sales, it grew 0.v% from 2020. This is nevertheless a smaller total than both Black Friday and Cyber Monday, but this could modify if Thanksgiving becomes a more popular day for online shopping in the hereafter.xv
12. How Covid-19 Affected Shopping
Due to the WHO classifying Covid-nineteen as a pandemic in March and the subsequent lockdowns and stay at home orders that came out, the starting time quarter of 2020 was mostly normal for online shopping. The U.Due south. Section of Commerce found just 14% growth between the first quarters of 2019 and 2020 — similar to the average growth of xiv.1% betwixt each quarter of 2018 and 2019.
However, between the 2nd quarter of 2020 and the outset quarter of 2021,
e-commerce saw growth of between 32% and 43.8% — over double what would normally be expected. This calmed down to a pocket-size 9.1% growth betwixt the second quarter of 2020 and 2021, simply it still represents a lasting modify boosting e-commerce over physical stores.
17

Online shopping cart abandonment happens about seventy% of the fourth dimension.
It’southward easy to go out a website and abandon your cart, and these statistics show how common it is and why people exercise it.
thirteen. How Common Is Cart Abandonment?
Although many studies have been done on cart abandonment, they often yield widely dissimilar results depending on when they were run and the populations they looked at. In tardily 2021, Baymard looked at 46 different manufactures, and constitute an
average cart abandonment rate just shy of 70%.8
xiv. Why Do People Abandon Online Carts?
The 2021 Baymard study also looked at the reasons U.S. adults abandoned their carts. After removing the
58.6% who said they were merely browsing
and weren’t looking to purchase, nearly half of Americans (49%) who had abandoned their carts did so because the actress costs — things similar shipping and taxes — were as well high.8
This report as well found that the requirement to make an account (24%), lengthy delivery time (19%) and a complicated checkout process (18%) were all major reasons that potential customers went somewhere else.

Online shopping often occurs through 3rd-political party marketplaces, similar Amazon.
Some of the largest and almost well-known sites are marketplaces where other companies can sell their goods. These next statistics look at how large these marketplaces can get and which ones are the most popular.
15. How Of import Are 3rd-Party Marketplaces?
When looking for goods online, it’s often easier to become through an due east-commerce market place. These are sites that other companies tin use to sell their products and online shoppers tin can utilize to search for and compare different options.
The 2021 online marketplace report by Digital Commerce plant that
sales on the top 100 platforms accounted for 62.7% of the money spent online in 2020, which is slightly higher than the 60.1% in the yr before.nine
16. What’s the About Popular Online Marketplace?
When looking at the top 100 eastward-commerce marketplaces,
three companies made up 62.six% of all marketplace income
and 39.i% of global e-commerce. These were
Amazon, Taobao and Tmall
— the latter ii being sites endemic past eastward-commerce giant Alibaba.9
17. How Many People Are Using Online Marketplaces?
In Apr 2021,
92% of U.S. consumers shopping online used a marketplace. Much of this shopping was done on major east-commerce sites similar Amazon and eBay, at 74% and 48%, respectively.9
However, not all purchases were made on these large markets — 42% of online consumers said they had made a purchase on a niche marketplace. This is up significantly from 29% in 2020, which is promising for these smaller and more specific platforms.
U.Due south. Consumers Who Used a Marketplace for Online Shopping
How Online Shoppers Use Dissimilar Devices

Online shoppers are increasingly using mobile devices, simply computers are still the chief device of choice.
Shopping on your phone is often simply equally easy as on a desktop, and these statistics show how common it is to apply different devices and how people shop differently on each device.
xviii. What Is the Boilerplate Order Value?
In the fourth quarter of 2021, Salesforce constitute that
on an average visit to an e-commerce site, American shoppers spend $iv. This is significantly college than the average beyond the 54 countries studied, which was merely $iii.14 per visit.
The average value per order in the U.S. was around $115.32. This is yet above the average of the countries studied, which was $103.42, merely below the average in the U.Due south. from the previous quarter, which was $115.91.10
19. How Do Other Devices Compare to Desktop Orders?
Salesforce plant that
desktop
orders fabricated upwards only
27% of traffic and 39% of orders in the quaternary quarter of 2021. At the same fourth dimension,
mobile
orders made up
58% of orders and 71% of traffic
to e-commerce sites.
On the other hand, tablets had a reasonable average gild of $101.xxx in 2020 — just above mobile devices — but fell behind in 2021. As the value of average sales between 2020 and 2021 grew 37% on desktop and 41% on mobile, they dropped by 0.12% to simply $101.18 on tablets.10
twenty. How Many People Use a Smartphone to Shop?
A December 2021 survey past the PwC found that
41% of online shoppers use their smartphone to brand purchases
either daily or weekly. This is up from 39% in June 2021, just information technology means that there’due south still room for sales on smartphones to grow.
This was lower in the U.South., where only 36% used their smartphone to shop at least one time a week. On the other mitt, shopping on a smartphone was more common in Cathay and India, where the numbers were as high as 61% and 53%, respectively.nineteen
21. How Many Sales Are Made on Smartphones?
According to the ADEI,
40% of online retail sales in the U.S. were made through a smartphone
in the offset quarter of 2021 — up from 36% in the same period of 2020. These are impressive numbers for mobile east-commerce, but the bulk of online purchases are even so being fabricated from other devices, like desktop computers and laptops.1
However, this isn’t the case for all countries. For example, the U.K. had almost half of all online sales fabricated through mobile phones. It likewise establish that many Japanese consumers preferred to use a phone, with 61% of all sales being fabricated on mobile devices.i
The Importance of Reviews and Social Media in Online Shopping

Reviews are very of import for online shoppers.
Most online shops take some kind of review system and some social media sites are even large enough to become shops. These statistics show just how much other people’s opinions and reviews affect our purchases.
22. Are Reviews Of import?
According to a 2021 Bizrate survey on customer reviews, only
8.7% of online shoppers volition typically purchase something without reading any reviews. On the other mitt, more than half of respondents said they volition read at least four reviews before making a purchase.11
However, while most consumers will only read a handful of reviews, 38% said they would merely trust something with over 50 reviews. Just 12.ix% of respondents said the number of reviews didn’t affair.11
The Bizrate survey also found that only
32.7% didn’t trust sponsored reviews. This means that, depending on the specific influencer and review,
67.3% of people had at least some trust
in products later on a sponsor review. Notwithstanding, as only
6.ane% said they completely trust these reviews, they’re ofttimes better for increasing awareness for new customers.eleven
Percentage of Shoppers That Trust Online Reviews
The eMarketer e-commerce survey from May 2021 asked people if they had bought something through social media and found that
48% of people had made a purchase via social media in the final 12 months. The report also showed that 56% of buyers made their purchases through links to external sites.
Of the major social networks,
Facebook was the most popular
for social commerce. This was probably because 88% of adults surveyed use it — more than whatsoever other social media platform. However, the dedicated Facebook Market place is also likely to have caused this.12
Due east-commerce is a big industry, and it’s not going away anytime presently. Hopefully these online shopping statistics accept made it easier to grasp consumer credence of online shopping and what’s of import to customers.
If these kinds of facts and statistics articles interest yous, check out our articles on deject computing statistics, online gaming statistics and VPN statistics to learn more about these circuitous aspects of the cyberspace.
Have y’all bought anything from an online store earlier? Did any of these statistics interest you? Were in that location whatever facts nosotros missed? Let united states of america know your thoughts in the comments below. Thanks for reading.
Sources:
- Adobe Digital Economy Index
- eMarketer – Worldwide retail eastward-commerce sales
- eMarketer – How the pandemic will consequence sales
- Marist Poll – Digital Economic system Poll
- Pew Research – How often U.S. adults are online
- BigCommerce – Consumer spending trends 2021
- U.Due south. Demography – Quarterly retail due east-commerce sales
- Baymard – Cart abandonment rates
- Digital Commerce – Online marketplace written report 2021
- Salesforce – Shopping Index
- Bizrate – Shopper Survey Study
- eMarketer – Social commerce usage
- Statista – E-commerce statistics
- Information Reportal – 2022 Global Report
- Adobe – 2021 Holiday Shopping Season Review
- U.South. Demography – Adjusted eastward-commerce sales over time
- eMarketer – Global due east-commerce forcast
- IPC – Cross border shopper survey 2021
- PwC – Consumer insights survey November 2021
Source: https://www.cloudwards.net/online-shopping-statistics/