eMarketer: Global e-commerce sales to exceed $4 trillion in 2020

Despite the challenges facing the retail industry in 2020, eMarketer expects global retail e-commerce sales to grow 27.6% and well over $4 trillion. This is a significant increase from eMarketer's mid-term assessment that global e-commerce growth would slow to 16.5%, showing the significant extent to which consumers turned to e-commerce last year.

Despite a 3.0% drop in global retail sales and the onset of recessions around the world, e-commerce performed better in 2020 than expected before the pandemic.

Consumers are expected to maintain many of their newfound digital behaviors in 2021. However, with high growth brought forward to 2020 and physical commerce not normalized throughout the year, growth rates will moderate somewhat in 2021, despite lingering enthusiasm for e-commerce.

eMarketer predicts that global retail e-commerce will grow by 14.3% this year, a relatively low figure compared to 20.2% in 2019 and 27.6% last year, but still represents an incremental sales volume of $611 billion.

Global e-commerce sales did not yet break $3 trillion in 2018. eMarketer estimates that it will easily break the $4 trillion mark in 2020, reach $5 trillion in 2022, and $6 trillion in 2024. In 2020, 18% of retail sales will come from e-commerce. By 2024, that number will reach 21.8%.

199IT.com Originally compiled from: eMarketer. Please do not reprint without authorization