Germany-based secondary market research organization yStats.com has synthesized predictions regarding the world’s second largest online retail market in the new publication “USA B2C E-Commerce Sales Forecasts: 2017 to 2021”. According to yStats.com’s CEO & Founder Yücel Yelken, “E-Commerce in the USA is growing at least three times faster than overall retail sales and is projected to maintain double-digit growth rates through 2021”. Among the drivers of online retail growth in the U.S. are market trends such as mobile shopping and omnichannel commerce.
The second largest B2C E-Commerce market in the world, the USA continues to see strong growth in online retail sales despite being already advanced by international standards. Over three-quarters of U.S. Internet users make purchases online, with more than 50% of consumers shopping for books, electronics and apparel online at least as much as in-store. B2C E-Commerce outpaces the growth of overall retail sales at least by a factor of three, and some sources cited in the yStats.com report predict that the online share of total retail sales could top 10% by the end of 2017.
Despite this level of advancement, most of the original sources cited by yStats.com expect online retail sales in the U.S. to maintain growth rates in the double digits over the forecast period. Some sources even foresee a milestone of 1 trillion dollars in online retail sales to be surpassed by the USA within the next decade. Nevertheless, due to a more rapid growth of emerging markets including China, the USA is projected to lose several percentage points in its share of global online sales by 2021.
Current market trends, such as the emergence of omnichannel commerce and the rise of mobile shopping are expected to contribute to this growth. By 2021, over one-half of online retail in the USA is projected to be done via mobile devices, up from about one-third in 2017. Furthermore, major store based-retailers including Walmart are investing in their E-Commerce capabilities while also developing omnichannel services such as BOPIS (buy-online-pickup-in-store), already used by more than 50% of Internet users as of 2017. Still, Amazon remains in the lead with a market share of around one-third of online retail sales, with some sources anticipating its share to increase over the next several years.
