Ecommerce in the USA Continues to grow

Globally ecommerce will hit Us$5 trillion in 2020, and its impact means retailers and brands must prepare for its next evolutions. According to the US Census Bureau, the US retail industry was estimated to have recorded almost $1.5 trillion in sales in Q4 2019, with ecommerce contributing over $187 billion. The overall industry’s sales grew by 4% year-over-year. Meanwhile, ecommerce grew much faster in Q4 2019 and bettered its Q4 2018 results, posting a 16.4% year on year growth rate compared to 10.8% in 2018.

According to Business Insider, there are 3 major takeaways based on the US retail industry’s recently reported performance for Q4 2019 and 2019 overall.

• Ecommerce cracked 10% of total retail sales in 2019, and its performance is propelling the overall retail growth. The segment accounted for approximately 11% of total retail sales in 2019. Ecommerce sales grew 14.9% for the year. Because merchants must embrace ecommerce to boost their own growth, the roles of solutions providers like BigCommerce and Shopify, as well as marketplaces like Amazon, could expand further in the coming years, because they help merchants without the resources to develop their own ecommerce platforms and to begin selling online.
• The industry managed to increase results during the Black Friday period despite the short holiday schedule. This season’s success indicates that deploying tactics like offering sales early should be implemented in years with longer holiday schedules too, in hopes of extending the holiday season and creating more sales opportunities.
• While ecommerce is a key growth driver for retailers, offline retail remains the largest sales opportunity — making an omnichannel approach key to a retailer’s success. Retail sales other than ecommerce made up 89% of 2019’s sales, so brick-and-mortar retail remains the focal point of US retail. This is likely why e-tailers like Amazon and payments companies like Stripe have been pushing into physical stores, as it gives them another way to attract volume.