What percentage of U.S. retail sales are made online? A decade ago, ecommerce accounted for around 7% of total retail purchases. Online sales now represent nearly 20% of spending through all channels.

Consumers spent $791.70 billion online in the U.S. in 2020, up an incredible 32.4% from $598.02 billion the prior year, according to a Digital Commerce 360 analysis of U.S. Department of Commerce data. That’s the highest annual U.S. ecommerce growth in at least two decades. Total retail sales through all channels increased 6.9% last year to $4.04 trillion from $3.78 trillion in 2019. Those figures include merchandise purchased in stores and through catalog/call centers but exclude spending in segments that don’t typically sell online such as restaurants, bars, automobile dealers, gas stations and fuel dealers. That marks the highest growth in total retail sales since 2004. This means ecommerce now accounts for 19.6% of total retail sales, up from 15.8% in 2019 and 14.3% in 2018.

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