Top 1000 retailers grew their web sales 15.7% in 2021, above the overall market’s growth of 14.2%. This represents slowing growth in ecommerce markets across industry after an explosive 2020.

The 500 largest retailers in the Top 1000 increased their online sales 45.7% in 2020 over 2019, led by the 100 largest retailers at 47.7%, while the bottom half of the Top 1000 increased their online sales only 24.5%.

The pattern reversed in 2021. The second 500 grew their online sales 21.9% while the top 500 grew only 15.5%. The retailers ranked Nos. 1-100, which had posted outsized gains in 2020, grew their web sales only 14.6% in 2021, below the collective ecommerce growth of the Top 1000 of 15.7%. That likely reflected many consumers returning to grocery stores as the rollout of COVID vaccines increased their comfort with entering stores, as well as a slowdown in the growth in consumer electronics sales.

Another indicator of the broad growth in 2021 is the fact that 72.2% of the Top 1000 increased their online sales in 2021 by more than 14.2%, the 2021 increase in the overall ecommerce market that the U.S. Department of Commerce reported. Consumer brand manufacturers and retail chains were the most likely to grow faster than the market.

A big majority of retailers of hardware and home improvement products grew faster than the overall market in 2021, as did more than three-quarters of sellers of consumer electronics, jewelry and apparel and accessories.