Ecommerce in US - growth or decline?

After the Census Bureau Retail numbers were published last week, there has been a lot of debate whether the ecommerce bubble from the pandemic has popped.

Share declining, but…

If one looks at the share of retail sales going to online, one could make an argument that the pandemic induced jump in ecommerce penetration has reversed back to normal pre-pandemic numbers.

However, when one looks at the absolute revenue numbers for ecommerce, the image is a bit different. The non-store revenues in US have grown steadily during the last seven years. During early 2020 and again in early 2021, ecommerce grew more rapidly. However, in January and February of 2022 ecommerce has had Year on Year growth of the historical about 15% level. Only in March did the growth slow down to 2,6%.

The share of online of all retailing has declined only, because the bricks and mortar part of the retailing industry has had a unprecendented growth during 2021.

Further growth to be expected

To summarise: ecommerce has kept on growing steadily, even after the huge jump during the pandemic. There is little indication to say that online growth would be dying down.

Online has become the biggest single category in the US retail industry and will keep on growing.