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Reviewed
Reviewed
Updated: Mar 28, 2024, 10:00am
If you’re looking for a way to boost your sales and take your business to new heights, e-commerce should be on your radar. By pairing a strong web presence with the latest e-commerce platforms, you can broaden your offerings, increase your reach and remain open 24/7. These top e-commerce statistics for 2024 will give you a better idea of the power of online sales.
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Each year, fewer and fewer people are shopping in physical stores.[1] To stay ahead of the game, your company needs to maximize its online presence and give customers a viable way to shop online. Rather than putting more money into brick-and-mortar locations, consider putting that budget into developing and marketing an online store.
Online shopping statistics show the increase in digital orders is not just a trend. Shopping online is here to stay, as 22.6% of total retail sales will be conducted online in 2027.[1] Start thinking today about how to sell products online to avoid becoming obsolete.
The entire e-commerce business is booming, not just retail sales. With nearly 9% growth projected for this year, there are plenty of opportunities to dive in.[1] Help your business stand out from the competition by staying at the forefront of online payment technologies and creating a website that's easy to navigate and browse.
Selling products online means you're not limited to local consumers. This gives you nearly unlimited potential for new demographics—and the statistics show companies are taking advantage. The global e-commerce market is expected to be worth $6.3 trillion this year—up from $5.8 trillion in 2023.[1]
It's a great time to be in e-commerce, as the market shows no signs of slowing down. By 2027, experts predict it'll total over $7.9 trillion.[1] This showcases just how important it is to jump on the e-commerce bandwagon now, while it's still relatively early. The earlier you buy in, the more money your company stands to make over time.
Amazon's e-commerce sales are down slightly from the previous year when they were 37.8% of all sales.[2] That said, the company is still leading the pack. Other top contenders include Walmart with 6.4% of sales, Apple with 3.6% of sales and eBay with 3% of sales.
Considering Amazon and eBay are two of the sites with the highest number of e-commerce sales, this shouldn't be much of a shocker. Still, the number of visits each site gets annually is astounding. Counting all of Amazon's country-specific domains, it gets over 2.8 billion views a year. AliExpress comes in second with 952 million, while eBay comes in third with 872 million.[3]
With the ease of international shipping and the simplicity of online orders, choosing a product from overseas is not a big concern for online shoppers. Globally, 52% of online consumers order from both local and international websites.[2] Tailoring your offerings to international customers by offering additional shipping options could be a viable way to increase your sales.
If you plan to add e-commerce to your business, you should know what will deter, rather than attract, customers. Almost half of online shoppers reported that extra fees, such as shipping and taxes, will prevent them from moving forward with their purchase during the checkout process. Other inhibitors include requiring shoppers to create an account, slow delivery times, website privacy concerns and a long or complicated checkout process.[2]
While you can ask online shoppers if they’d like to create an account on your website, you shouldn’t require them to do so. This is because some of them may simply leave your online store and look elsewhere for what they need. They’d prefer to checkout as a guest and don’t want to go through the time and hassle of creating a username and password.[2]
When a customer orders a product online, they may not expect it that hour or that day. But many of them want it as soon as possible. If it takes weeks or months for you to ship orders, they’ll likely leave their online shopping session on your website and turn to a competitor with faster shipping times.[2] E-commerce and slow shipping are not a good combination so it’s important to streamline your shipping processes and do whatever you can to expedite the time it takes for customers to receive their orders.
For many people, shopping online is a strong habit. As many as 34% of shoppers buy something online once a week.[4] Your company may be able to capitalize on this by using email marketing to send out weekly product updates and offerings to entice your customer base into a purchase.
Over 48 studies have looked at shopping cart abandonment rate statistics, and the average between them all is 69.99%.[5] This number has held relatively steady since about 2014. If you want to reduce this percentage, consider changing some of the factors we identified above, such as enabling guest checkout, reducing shipping costs and providing faster turnaround times. You might also consider abandoned cart email campaigns to lure customers who are on the fence back in.
As the number of social media users increases, so does the amount they’re spending in apps. In 2022, customers spent $992 billion on purchases through social media. This trend is particularly big in Thailand, where 90% of internet users have purchased from social media. India is a close second, with 86% of internet users making a social media purchase.[2]
If you thought the current social media commerce market was big, consider that it’s expected to jump up to $8.5 trillion in just six short years.[2] There are major opportunities here for businesses to cash in on their social media following. To take advantage of this growing audience, we recommend using a robust social media management tool.
While global social media commerce statistics are huge, they’re still quite large in the United States as well. It’s estimated that 106.8 million people shopped on social media in 2023. This is expected to increase by 10.6% to 118 million Americans shopping on social media by 2027.[2]
In 2021, more than half of 18- to 24-year-old social media users in the U.S. placed at least one online order via social media. While these millennials make up the age group that shopped the most on social media, 25 to 34 years earn the second place spot. It’s clear that social media commerce is most effective with the younger generations.[2] Keep your target audience in mind when trying to determine whether to implement social media in your e-commerce strategy.
Live commerce is a growing trend where users buy products from social media sites in real time. It’s a particularly popular option in Thailand, India and China, where over seven in 10 users engaged in live shopping.[2] If you’d like to move into the global market or expand your global reach, selling your products or services on social media is certainly worth exploring.
There is no shortage of social media platforms these days but not all of them are effective for selling your offerings online. About 51% of survey respondents stated that they use Facebook for online purchases so keep this in mind when determining which platforms to use. According to research, there were over 90 million U.S. social commerce buyers in 2021.[2]
Social media gives many people the feeling that they need to “keep up with the Joneses.” As a result, many of them make purchases they might not have considered if they didn’t use a platform such as Facebook or Instagram. The most influential products on social media include clothing or accessories, health or beauty items, food or drinks, event tickets and vacation experiences.[6]
Social media influencers are active social media users who have built a reputation for their expertise and knowledge on a certain topic. Almost half of social media commerce shoppers have been encouraged to make a purchase based on what they saw or heard from these influencers. Believe it or not, 70% of teens trust influencers more than traditional celebrities and 86% of women use social media for purchasing advice.[7]
Most people depend on their smartphone on a daily basis. Whether they have an Apple, Android or other device, many of them turn to it every time they want to make an online purchase.[8] While it’s vital to create a seamless shopping experience on a desktop, it’s almost more important to ensure your website looks and works well on mobile devices.
Since 2018, the global mobile e-commerce market has been steadily increasing. It was a mere 56% back then, but experts estimate it’ll reach 62% in 2027.[2] To prepare, it’s important to make sure your online website and store follow the best mobile website design practices, including making pages easy to navigate with thumbs and utilizing responsive web design.
Clearly, mobile commerce is a big market, as it totaled $491 billion in sales last year.[2] More and more customers are shopping from their phones, so it makes sense for your company to start considering tactics such as mobile SEO to help specifically draw in smartphone users to your website.
In just three years, mobile commerce sales will nearly double to $856 billion.[2] To stay competitive in your industry, your business must start building mobile e-commerce into your overall digital marketing strategy. Consider redesigning your website to be more responsive, creating a shopping app for users to browse your products or even offering special discounts or perks for mobile users.
Smartphones are widely used for online shopping, but what about tablets? Tablet e-commerce sales reached $61.08 billion in 2022. Surprisingly, this figure is expected to go down to $54.01 billion by 2026.[1] This is likely because tablets are becoming less popular and e-commerce retailers have improved the mobile shopping experience.
Featured Partners
1
Wix
$17 per month
Yes
Yes
1
Wix
On Wix's Website
2
Web.com
$1.95 per month
Yes
Customizable templates, easy grag-and-drop technology, SSL certificate
2
Web.com
On Web.com's Website
3
Squarespace
$23 per month
Yes
Yes
3
Squarespace
On Squarespace's Website
Fraud that occurs on an e-commerce platform, such as using a stolen or fake credit card to make a purchase, is considered e-commerce fraud. Unfortunately, e-commerce retailers missed out on about $41 billion due to e-commerce fraud in 2022.[2]
Sadly, e-commerce fraud is not going away any time soon. In fact, it’s likely that online retailers will lose $48 billion to e-commerce fraud in 2023.[2] If you’re using e-commerce to boost your sales, prioritize fraud prevention measures, such as routine security audits, an Address Verification Service (AVS) and a Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS).
If you’re selling products online, you’ll need to account for some e-commerce fraud detection and prevention tools in your budget. This might include verification software or IP fraud-scoring tools to stop thieves from trying to scam your system. Right now, the market for this software is booming, as it’s worth over $36.7 billion.[2]
E-commerce fraud detection and prevention tools will only become more important as online shopping continues to grow. Experts estimate the market will be worth over $100 billion by 2027.[2] Scammers will continue finding ways to skirt fraud detection efforts, meaning companies will need to invest in more vigilant software as well as stay payment card industry compliant.
This number is up from $96 the year before, and it’s expected to keep on increasing.[2] Unsurprisingly, the number of consumers who lost money after being targeted by an online shopping scam is also on the rise. It’s gone from 71% in 2015 to 75% in 2021. Businesses need to take proactive steps to protect both their own and their customers’ finances.
The $9.8 billion customers spent on Black Friday is a 7.5% year-over-year increase, meaning that economic woes did not slow down spending habits.[9] This can be one of the biggest revenue days of the year for small businesses, so entice customers to open their wallets with limited-time sales or other deals.
When comparing Black Friday vs. Cyber Money statistics, Cyber Monday comes out ahead as the biggest online shopping day during Cyber Week. Businesses raked in $12.4 billion in sales, which is a 9.6% year-over-year increase.[9] If you’re planning out marketing strategies for the holiday shopping season, make sure to prioritize deals on Cyber Monday to get the attention of your customers.
The biggest drivers for this holiday spending were electronics, which accounted for $50.8 billion. Other top categories include apparel ($41.5 billion), furniture ($27.3 billion) and grocery ($19.1 billion).[9]
Holiday spending in 2023 was a 4.9% year-over-year increase from 2022’s holiday season. However, this year-over-year growth does not match pre-pandemic growth levels (which topped 32.1% between 2019 and 2020).[9]
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Kristy Snyder is a freelance writer and editor with 12 years of experience, currently contributing to the Forbes Advisor Small Business vertical. She uses her experience managing her own successful small business to write articles about software, small business tools, loans, credit cards and online banking. Kristy's work also appears in Newsweek and Fortune, focusing on personal finance.
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