How Many People Shop Online in 2021?
With the rise of ecommerce, it’s only natural that the number of online shoppers worldwide rises along with it. As it stands in 2021, the number of digital buyers is at 2.14 billion. That makes 27.6 percent of the 7.74 billion people in the world. In other words, more than one out of every four people you see around you is an online shopper.
The number of online shoppers has been growing over the past few years. In 2021, there were 900 million more digital buyers than there were in 2020—a 4.4 percent year-over-year increase.
The increase should come as no surprise, as internet connectivity penetrates the world and online shopping becomes increasingly convenient.
Exclusive online shopping events offering huge discounts such as Singles’ Day in China, Amazon Prime Day, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday have also played their part in spurring shoppers to hop on the online shopping bandwagon.
Given the rising trend, the potential for an ecommerce store is huge. A deeper look into these ecommerce statistics would go a long way in helping budding ecommerce store owners better understand the direction of online shopping.
To do that, ecommerce entrepreneurs need to look beyond general questions such as how many people shop online or the number of online shoppers in their target markets and dive into specifics.
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The US doesn’t lack online shoppers and it’s certainly common to purchase goods online in the US.
The number of online shoppers in the US has also been increasing in recent years. In 2021, there will be over 230 million US digital buyers—a 1.32 percent increase from 2020. The growth rate is slightly lower than the average annual growth rate in the five-year period from 2016 to 2021, which came in at 1.92 percent.
US digital shoppers seem to have a clear preference for certain types of goods. Of the $469.2 billion US digital buyers are projected to generate in online sales in 2021, $142.8 billion is expected to be spent on fashion.
This constitutes 30.4 percent of total online sales in the US. In other words, more than three out of every ten dollars that US digital buyers spent on online shopping this year will be on fashion-related items.