Global Ecommerce Sales Growth (2019–2025)
The global ecommerce growth rate for 2021 is forecast at 16.8 percent, bringing global ecommerce sales worldwide to $4.921 trillion. This growth is, however, a dip from last year’s rate.
In 2020, global ecommerce growth rates hit 25.7 percent. This represents the largest year-over-year increase between 2019 and 2025 and can be attributed to the coronavirus pandemic.
The COVID-19 outbreak forced governments all over the world to impose strict lockdowns, which meant brick-and-mortar stores had to stay shut and consumers had to stay home. This boosted online retail growth as people went on the internet to carry out their purchases.
And with some parts of the world still in lockdown (as of the third quarter of 2021), ecommerce sales are set to increase this year—albeit at a slower pace—and growth is projected to decelerate over the coming years.
For instance, ecommerce sales growth worldwide is expected at 12.7 percent in 2022, a 4.1 percentage point dip from 2021. This will fall to 11.2 percent in 2023, 9.8 percent in 2024, and 9.0 percent in 2025.
Despite the falling growth rates, the ecommerce share of retail sales is expected to increase. In 2021, this figure is forecast at 19.6 percent and will increase to 24.5 percent by 2025.
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Looking at it from a global perspective, ecommerce sales experienced the greatest growth in Latin America in 2020. The latest ecommerce growth statistics show that overall sales from online retail in that region increased by 36.7 percent. In comparison, ecommerce sales growth a year ago from 2018 to 2019 came in at 23.2 percent—13.5 percentage points lower.
The growth of online shopping in North America is also significant as the region registered a 31.8 percent increase in ecommerce sales. This is followed by Central and Eastern Europe, where ecommerce sales grew 29.1 percent.
Despite being home to the world’s biggest ecommerce market, the Asia-Pacific region is expected to see a lower-than-average ecommerce sales growth rate of 26.4 percent.
The region with the slowest ecommerce sales growth rate is the Middle East and Africa. At 19.8 percent, its growth rate is only around two-thirds as fast as that of the global ecommerce growth rate of 27.6 percent.
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