US online retailing surging ahead as other retailing cools down

The rumours about the demise of online retailing in the United States have been exaggerated. Over the last few years, there has been much discussion around the presumable demise of online retailing. That discussion can be moved aside as 2022 was a year of rapid growth for online retailers.

Online retailing has continued to grow uninterrupted throughout the pandemic and its aftermath.

In March 2022, online growth dipped to 5% YoY. Since then, online has picked up its growth. Even despite the high inflation, online has been able to outpace the inflation growth. The store based retailers have lagged behind inflation leading to reduced sales volumes.

In revenue terms, online reached a milestone this year as almost the entire year saw $100+ billion in monthly revenues before last March. Previously online had reached $100 billion during only three months (12/2020, 11/2021 & 12/2022).

To put the online growth in perspective, 12/2022 was 53% bigger than the pre-pandemic 12/2019.

Online took a step change in growth during the pandemic and continued to grow rapidly from that higher level.

Online share also reached new heights as it broke the 20% level during Christmas.

The quarterly reportin season for Q4 reports remains interesting in the light of the resurgence of online. Will Amazon return to higher than the market growth or will other companies like Walmart grow faster?

Differing success for different categories

Online was among the best-performing categories of the US retail scene in 2022. The other great success was the rapid rise of restaurants. The third category with solid growth was the grocery channel, albeit with much more conservative growth than the two abovementioned.

On the other hand, electronics, fashion and DIY retailers struggled to grow on top of the 2021 levels. Electronics was dragged significantly below the previous year.