Ecommerce statistics: 27 Key figures for online retailers to know in 2026

General state of the global ecommerce industry statistics

What is the total amount of ecommerce sales worldwide?

Global ecommerce revenue is showing staggering figures…

According to eMarketer, the global ecommerce market was estimated to amount to $6.419 trillion in 2025 and is expected to reach approximately $7.89 trillion in 2028.

The following chart details the growth of retail ecommerce sales worldwide in the past few years in terms of the percentage increase compared to the previous year, along with estimated increases for the future:

Source: eMarketer

What share of total global retail sales comes from ecommerce?

While it’s clear that physical commerce is still very crucial when it comes to retail revenue, the growing importance of ecommerce around the world can’t be denied. 

Consider the following statistic: ecommerce sales made up only 7.4% of global retail sales in 2015 but were predicted to almost triple in size 10 years later, accounting for 20.5% of retail sales in 2026, based on eMarketer data.

This is great news for people who are considering launching their very own online stores!

However, knowing the percentage of retail sales that occur online is also a helpful statistic for owners of brick-and-mortar shops to keep in mind. 

If they don’t yet have a professional, functioning ecommerce site, it’s a good time to start working on building their online presence. 

Based on eMarketer’s data, the percentage of global retail sales originating from the internet is likely to continue trending upwards and is expected to reach 22.5% by 2028.

What country is the leader in ecommerce?

In terms of which country generates the greatest amount of ecommerce revenue around the world, China takes first place, bringing in $3.45 trillion in 2025, as reported by SellersCommerce.

This dominance isn’t anything new, as the country has been at the top of the rankings for several years. Between population, international exports, and economic power, China is by far the strongest country in ecommerce.

This is followed by the United States, which generated $1.38 trillion in 2025, less than half of China’s total sales. The United Kingdom was #3 regarding ecommerce earnings in 2025, coming in at $195.7 billion.

This table lists the top 10 largest ecommerce markets around the world:

Source: SellersCommerce

What share of the total global ecommerce market is made up of the countries with the most revenue?

When looking at the countries generating the most ecommerce sales around the world, we see that the top 5 (China, the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, and South Korea) together bring in approximately 83.1% of global earnings.

China, however, has by far the largest share, earning 53.7% of worldwide ecommerce market sales.

What country has the highest share of retail sales occurring online?

MobiLoud reports that in 2023, China had the greatest share of retail sales originating online, with ecommerce accounting for 47% of China’s total retail revenue. 

Rounding out the top 3 in this category were Indonesia and the United Kingdom, with 31.9% and 30.6% of their total retail revenue coming from ecommerce respectively.

Source: MobiLoud

What country has the fastest growing ecommerce market in the world?

As of 2025, the Philippines had the greatest amount of ecommerce growth, with online sales increasing by 24.1%, according to MobiLoud. 

India and Indonesia held the #2 and #3 positions, with ecommerce growth of 22.0% and 20% respectively. Mexico took the leading spot for the Americas, with an ecommerce growth rate of 14.5%, while Argentina coming in just behind at around 12%.

Depending on where you’re based and your specific products/services, it may be interesting to think about targeting these areas to boost sales for your online store.

What is the #1 segment in the global ecommerce market?

Today, consumers shopping on the web can find all kinds of online stores, selling nearly any product imaginable. However, it’s important to note that some types of goods tend to sell better than others online, for various reasons. 

In 2023, based on a Statista study, electronics took the #1 spot around the world regarding ecommerce market segments, accounting for approximately 23% of worldwide ecommerce revenue.

If you’re considering creating your own ecommerce site but don’t yet know what you want to sell, the electronics universe may very well be a good place to start. 

It’s worth noting, though, that the segments of fashion as well as toys, hobby, and DIY are close behind, generating 21.1% and 19.7% of the world’s ecommerce revenue respectively.

What sector is predicted to have the most revenue growth in upcoming years?

Although electronic goods currently produce the most ecommerce revenue, food and personal care products are expected to see the biggest growth in global sales in the next few years. 

According to Wicked Reports, analysts estimated that this sector would grow 64.2% from 2020 to 2025, earning a forecasted $791.6 billion by 2025.

Looking back in recent history, it’s not difficult to see why the “food and personal care” sector is experiencing significant growth.

While the shift to purchasing goods in this category began several years back, COVID-19’s arrival skyrocketed this buying behavior, as people, motivated by health concerns and lockdown restrictions, began shopping for groceries and personal hygiene products like toilet paper on the internet. 

Today, many shoppers continue to appreciate the added convenience of ecommerce and prefer to purchase essential goods online.

Although food and personal care is the sector expected to experience the most growth, it’s actually the fashion sector that’s likely to generate the most money, with estimated revenue of $1.2 trillion in 2025. 

The following table lists the predicted global revenues for the rest of the aforementioned fastest growing ecommerce sectors:

Source: Wicked Reports

Ecommerce marketing statistics

What is the top source of brand discovery?

Thinking about letting your SEO efforts fall by the wayside? If so, I strongly urge you to reconsider!

According to DataReportal’s October 2025 report, search engines are the most popular source of brand discovery for internet users worldwide, with 32.9% of survey respondents stating that they use this method for discovering new brands. 

And while respondents were able to select one more response for this particular survey question, it’s clear that optimizing your ecommerce website to work on climbing the rankings on search engines like Google is still very much an essential task when it comes to achieving success in web commerce.

When it comes to helping potential customers discover your brand, products, and/or services, you might be interested to learn that besides online searches, TV ads were another favorite among survey respondents, with 31.8% of them choosing this strategy. 

Social media ads, word of mouth, and TV shows and films all followed closely behind, with 30.4%, 29.1%, and 25.0% of respondents picking these options respectively.

What is the size of the global influencer marketing market?

Influencer marketing is one of today’s most prevalent marketing strategies used by brands all around the world. 

Based on data from Mordor Intelligence, the global influencer marketing market size was valued at $31.07 billion in 2025, and is predicted to grow to $152.56 billion by 2031.

This leading digital marketing tactic is very effective due to the trust that the influencer has built up with their audience. 

A brand will seek out an influencer well known in a specific niche with whom to collaborate. In exchange for money or free goods, the influencer will then promote the brand’s product or service to their audience on social networks or another platform, such as a blog.

Have a relatively new ecommerce business? Note that marketers with a smaller budget on hand can still find lots of success working with influencers—you don’t need to hire a world-famous celebrity!

In fact, one of the most prominent ecommerce marketing trends now involves brands partnering with nano- or micro-influencers (those with around 1K to 10K followers and 10K to 50K followers respectively). Besides usually charging lower fees, these levels of influencers tend to have more engaged, better targeted audiences.

What is the annual global spend on social media advertising?

With the growing number of social network users browsing the different platforms in their free time, it’s not surprising that brands are increasingly taking advantage of social networks to promote their product catalog and/or services.

In fact, according to DataReportal, annual global spend on social media advertising grew by $144 billion in a 5-year time period, reaching $277 billion in 2025.

The table below indicates how much recent spending on social media advertising increased in terms of percentage compared to the previous year:

Source: DataReportal

If you have a new ecommerce store, investing in paid advertising may not yet be a priority, depending on your financial situation. Nevertheless, it’s something you’ll definitely want to keep in mind as your business grows and your marketing budget becomes more flexible.

What country has the highest average social media ad spend per person?

According to DataReportal, the United States leads the way when it comes to average social media ad spend per capita, investing $335 per user on average for advertising on social networks, followed by the United Kingdom and Australia, who spend $207 and $204 respectively per user on average, as of February 2025.

It’s interesting to note that these figures are quite a bit higher than the global average, which is reported to be $46.47 per user.

What is the most popular platform for social commerce in the US?

Today, we can’t talk about social media and ecommerce without mentioning social commerce, the use of social networks to facilitate ecommerce transactions. 

Although multiple platforms offer social commerce capabilities, Facebook is the most used option in the US, as reported by eMarketer, with 69.4 million people predicted to shop on the network in 2025.

Instagram is also a popular choice, with 47.5 million consumers expected to purchase via the platform this year.

This is followed by TikTok, with an estimated 37.8 million shoppers for the same period, and Pinterest, with an estimated 18.1 million shoppers.

How important is a personalized experience to shoppers?

The importance of personalization in marketing is at an all-time high. In fact, delivering a personalized experience for each of your customers is likely to become a must rather than an option when it comes to the future of ecommerce.

This is even more apparent when reviewing the results of a 2022 Statista study showing that the percentage of shoppers who stated that brands would lose their loyalty if they received an non-personalized experience increased from 45% to 62% in just one year!

What is the ROI of email marketing in ecommerce?

Email marketing continues to be one of the most prevalent marketing strategies, as it usually provides a high return on investment (ROI) across the board, earning businesses an average of $36 per dollar spent, according to Statista data. 

However, this amount surges to $45 (a 25% increase) for ecommerce brands.

Note that although this digital marketing strategy is generally quite advantageous for online retailers, you can’t just write anything in your messages and expect to be successful with your efforts. Your newsletters should provide subscribers with real value.

How much time do consumers spend reading brand emails?

Consumers tend to receive loads of emails every day, and they don’t always have the patience or the time to read each one carefully. 

Statista data shows that the average amount of time that people spend reading a branded email once it’s been opened has decreased in recent years, going from 13.4 seconds in 2018 to 10 seconds in 2021.

For this reason, it’s crucial to know your target audience and what kind of content is most likely to appeal to them.

How important do e-tailers find implementing an omnichannel strategy to be?

Nowadays, consumers can buy from and communicate with their favorite brands in multiple ways, including in person at physical stores or online on ecommerce sites or social media platforms. 

While many businesses go the multichannel route to allow for as many sales opportunities as possible, an increasing number of them are recognizing the importance of taking an omnichannel approach.

In fact, Statista data shows that in 2021, 47% of ecommerce decision-makers based in Europe and North America considered omnichannel strategies to be very important.

This method takes the multichannel strategy to the next level by ensuring that your various channels are integrated seamlessly, making it possible for you to optimize your communication with consumers and give a more personalized shopping experience for each customer. 

When implemented well, an omnichannel strategy can do wonders for nurturing your relationships with prospective customers and boosting conversions.

Whether you have a brick-and-mortar shop in addition to an ecommerce version or strictly sell your products on the web, omnichannel marketing will help you to improve the shopping experience for users, boost customer satisfaction, and differentiate your brand from the competition.

Mobile commerce statistics

How much revenue does mobile commerce bring in?

The mobile commerce or m-commerce market has increased significantly in recent years and amounted to $2.24 trillion in global revenue in 2025, according to Fortune Business Insights.

The market is expected to reach $2.42 trillion in 2026 and grow approximately 107% by 2034, amounting to $5.01 trillion.

What share of digital commerce website traffic comes from smartphones?

With Statista reporting that approximately 78% of global ecommerce website traffic originated from mobile traffic and 68% of online sales orders came from smartphones in 2025, one thing is clear: if you don’t already have a mobile-friendly version of your online store, the above statistic should help convince you to start working on this ASAP!

In addition, when you consider that the number of smartphone subscriptions around the world was over 7.3 billion in 2025, according to Statista, and that this figure is predicted to surpass 7.9 billion by 2028, it’s no wonder that consumers are increasingly using their mobile devices to shop on the web. 

With a growing dependence on all the helpful features that smartphone technology offers, it’s unlikely that the majority of people are going to be giving up their beloved devices anytime soon.

Knowing these statistics, it's essential that you keep mobile commerce at the forefront of your strategy. 

Whether you’re about to launch your ecommerce business or already have one in place, prioritize providing an enjoyable mobile shopping experience for users shopping on your site.

Online shoppers’ behaviors and preferences statistics

What is the average shopping cart abandonment rate? 

If you’re concerned about your online store’s seemingly high cart abandonment rate, don’t throw in the towel and shut down your business just yet! 

Most ecommerce sites see quite a few abandoned carts on a daily basis, with the average cart abandonment rate being 70.22% in 2025, according to Baymard Institute.

At first glance, this can be discouraging as a business owner, especially if you’ve devoted lots of time, energy, and possibly even money to driving more traffic to your site. 

However, it’s important to keep in mind that shoppers may add items to your site and then leave before making a purchase for any number of reasons—some of which you may not be able to have much control over.

Nevertheless, you can always aim to improve your online store’s abandoned cart rate! As you’ll see below, a high abandoned cart rate is often due to causes that can be easily remedied.

What is the top reason for cart abandonment when shoppers are ready to buy? 

Although some people shopping on the internet are ready to make a purchase as soon as they find the product or service that they’re looking for, others are simply in the mood to browse—the online equivalent of window shopping!

Shoppers in the latter category are much more likely to exit an ecommerce site before finalizing an order. Maybe they wanted to do a bit more research or had to close the browser because something else came up unexpectedly.

That being said, for those consumers not in this “not-ready-to-buy” segment, there are several common reasons why they opt to abandon their shopping carts when visiting an online store, with the main concern being financially related.

A 2025 Baymard Institute study involving over 1,000 adults in the US found that the #1 cause for shoppers abandoning their carts at checkout (excluding shoppers who were just browsing and not ready to buy) was due to extra costs such as shipping, taxes, or fees being higher than expected, with 39% of respondents naming this as one of the reasons they’ve abandoned a cart in the past three months.

This was followed by slow delivery, distrust in providing the site with credit card information, and mandatory account creation.

To help with these concerns, try to minimize extra costs for your customers and be as up front as possible about required costs associated with shipping, taxes, or other fees. 

In addition, allow visitors to check out as guests, offer the option to avail of fast shipping, and display security certificates you’ve obtained to boost consumer trust.

How important is free shipping to online shoppers?

As hinted at in the previous statistic, people aren’t generally big fans of paying for shipping when purchasing items on the internet (shocker, I know). 

However, knowing that it has a major impact on the buying decisions of 9 out of 10 shoppers, according to Invesp, will likely sway you to at least think about offering free shipping on your online store if you aren’t already doing so.

Don’t want to implement a policy allowing for no-cost shipping for every single order on your ecommerce site? 

There are ways to work around this. For example, you might offer free shipping for orders over a certain dollar amount, slower delivery times, or customers enrolled in your loyalty program. 

You can even help build your email list by gifting new subscribers with a discount code to use for free shipping on their next purchase!

How important is sustainability to consumers?

Although ecommerce offers quite a few advantages for both consumers and retailers, it comes with several disadvantages too, including wasteful excess packaging and rising carbon emissions from transporting orders.

With a growing concern for the environment and the negative effects of climate change, many online shoppers around the world are increasingly prioritizing sustainable goods for their purchases.

In a 2022 Statista survey, the majority (89%) of consumers stated that they’d begun engaging in more environmentally friendly purchasing behavior over the past 5 years, with 35% of respondents saying that they bought sustainable products significantly more frequently or changed their way of living around to be sustainable.

To appeal to eco-conscious consumers (and of course help the planet), brainstorm how your business can work on becoming more sustainable. This might involve your products themselves, your business practices, or a combination of the two.

It’s also interesting to note that data from a 2022 Statista study found that over 50% of consumers want to buy secondhand goods or fix the items they already have rather than purchase new items. 

This suggests the perfect opportunity to launch that vintage clothing online store that you’ve been dreaming of starting!

Final thoughts

Depending on your specific products and target market, it’s possible that some of the ecommerce statistics discussed in this article may be more applicable to your business than others. 

Nevertheless, this list of statistics serves as a helpful source of interesting insights into what’s occurring in ecommerce today and how the acts of buying and selling online are evolving.

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