Despite a challenging year for retail in 2020, we estimate that worldwide retail ecommerce sales posted a 27.6% growth rate for the year, with sales reaching well over $4 trillion. This represents a substantial uptick from our mid-pandemic assessment that global ecommerce would decelerate to 16.5% growth and demonstrates the remarkable extent to which consumers transitioned to ecommerce last year.
Pandemic accelerates livestreaming growth in China: The format will grow rapidly at 10.6% in 2021, driven by social apps and ecommerce livestreams.
US shoppers are buying more internationally. Less than a third of US digital shoppers made a cross-border purchase last year, but that number is growing steadily as marketplaces like Amazon make international commerce more accessible.
With many retail stores temporarily closed during the pandemic, and more consumers turning online to buy goods, major social networks have taken steps to improve their ecommerce offerings.
Many social media platforms have started making measurable gains in social commerce, but according to a June 2020 Bizrate Insights survey conducted for eMarketer, there’s still a ways to go.