4.5 minutes

Q2 2024 marked the third-highest total for U.S. ecommerce sales in a quarter, after Q4 2023 (the only quarter so far to exceed $300 billion) and Q4 2022.

U.S. ecommerce penetration in Q2 2024 fell short of Q1’s but still grew compared to Q2 2023, according to Digital Commerce 360 analysis of U.S. Department of Commerce data. The department’s ecommerce data goes back to the year 2000.

Still, U.S. ecommerce penetration marked a Q2 high at 21.7%. Before that, the highest second-quarter U.S. ecommerce penetration was in 2020, when it reached 21.3% amid the COVID-19 pandemic.



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As far as second quarters go, 2024 and 2020 mark the only times U.S. ecommerce penetration has crossed the 21% mark in Q2. Since 2020, Q2s have hovered around 20% penetration.

For reference, before 2020, Q2 digital sales penetration had capped at 14.3% in 2019. Additionally, Q2 ecommerce sales penetration hadn’t crossed the 10% mark until 2016.

Contextualizing US ecommerce and total sales in Q2 2024

The Census Bureau of the Department of Commerce estimates that U.S. retail ecommerce sales in Q2 2024 totaled $291.6 billion. It also estimated that total U.S. retail sales reached about $1.827 trillion.

Excluding spending in segments that don’t typically sell online, that comes out to $1.300 trillion, according to Digital Commerce 360 analysis. Moreover, U.S. ecommerce sales totaled about $282.29 billion in Q2, Digital Commerce 360 analysis shows.

That’s the third-highest total for U.S. ecommerce sales in a quarter, after Q4 2023 ($322.86 billion) and Q4 2022 ($293.99 billion). Historically, Q4 has always had more ecommerce sales than each of the other three quarters in the year — a result of the holiday shopping season.

No other quarters have cracked $280 billion. Before Q2 2020, none had crossed the $200 billion mark either, highlighting the roles of the COVID-19 pandemic and inflation on growing U.S. ecommerce spending totals. Furthermore, U.S. ecommerce first crossed the $100 billion mark in a quarter in Q4 2015.

Ecommerce growth rate and penetration of total sales

Ecommerce grew 6.6% year over year in Q2 2024. Meanwhile, ecommerce penetration of total U.S. retail sales in Q2 is up almost 1% from the previous year. That’s in line with a trend starting from Q1 2023, said James Risley, research data manager and senior analyst at Digital Commerce 360.

“Ecommerce spending growth seems to be holding steady, maintaining a similar share of sales quarter to quarter as during the pandemic,” Risley said. “However, the year’s growth may be concentrated at the top end of the Top 1000, as giants like Amazon and Walmart have been reporting huge ecommerce gains in recent quarters.”

Amazon sales in North America grew 9% year over year in its fiscal Q2 (which ended June 30), to about $90.0 billion. And although its fiscal Q2 ended July 31, a large chunk of Walmart online sales were still during the calendar Q2. Walmart’s U.S. web sales grew 22% year over year in its fiscal Q2.

Amazon and Walmart’s online sales growth in the second quarter each outpaced the growth of U.S. ecommerce sales overall in Q2. That means

Amazon is No. 1 in the Top 1000, Digital Commerce 360’s database of North America’s largest online retailers. It’s also No. 3 in the Global Online Marketplaces Database, which ranks the 100 largest global marketplaces by third-party gross merchandise value (GMV).

Walmart is No. 2 in the Top 1000. It is also No. 9 in the Global Online Marketplaces Database.

At the same time, offline sales growth — total retail growth minus ecommerce — is down to its lowest point since the first quarter of the pandemic, Risley said. Offline retail sales grew just 0.8% in the quarter.

How is ecommerce penetration calculated? 

Including all retail and food-service sales, U.S. ecommerce accounted for 16.0% of total sales in Q2 2024, according to the Commerce Department. Unadjusted figures show U.S. ecommerce sales represented 15.2% of total sales, the Commerce Department said. It estimates that total, unadjusted U.S. ecommerce sales in Q2 2024 reached $282.3 billion.

Digital Commerce 360 studies non-seasonally adjusted commerce department data and excludes spending in segments that don’t typically sell online. These segments include:

  • Restaurants
  • Bars
  • Automobile dealers
  • Gas stations
  • Fuel dealers

U.S. ecommerce penetration reflects the share of dollars consumers could potentially spend online.

The Commerce Department defines ecommerce sales as the sales of goods and services where an order is placed by the buyer or price and terms of sales are negotiated over:

  • Internet
  • Extranet
  • Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) network
  • Electronic mail
  • Other online system

Payment may or may not be made online. The Commerce Department publishes estimates it adjusts for seasonal variation and holiday and trading-day differences, but not for price changes.

Percentage changes may not align exactly with dollar figures due to rounding. Here’s last quarter’s update.

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