E-Commerce

In 2023, global retail e-commerce sales reached an estimated 5.8 trillion U.S. dollars. Projections indicate a 39 percent growth in this figure over the coming years, with expectations to surpass eight trillion dollars by 2027.

World players Among the key players on the world stage, the Chinese retail giant Alibaba holds the title of the largest e-commerce retailer globally, accounting for a 23 percent market share. Nevertheless, forecasts suggest that by 2027, Seattle-based e-commerce powerhouse Amazon will surpass Alibaba in estimated sales, reaching a staggering 1.2 trillion U.S. dollars in online sales.

Leading e-tailing countries The Chinese e-commerce market was the biggest worldwide in 2023, as internet sales constituted almost half of the country's retail transactions. Indonesia ranked second with the highest share of retail sales online (32 percent), closely trailed by the United Kingdom and South Korea, exceeding the 30 percent mark. That year, the up-and-coming e-commerce markets centered around Asia. The Philippines and India stood out as the swiftest-growing e-commerce markets based on online sales, anticipating a growth rate surpassing 20 percent.

From 2004 to 2023, the net revenue of Amazon e-commerce and service sales has increased tremendously. In the fiscal year ending December 31, the multinational e-commerce company's net revenue was almost 576 billion U.S. dollars, up from 514 billion U.S. dollars in 2022.
Amazon.com, a U.S. electronic commerce company originally founded in 1994, is the world’s largest online retailer of books, clothing, electronics, music, and many more goods. As of 2023, the company generates the majority of it's net revenues through online retail product sales, followed by third-party retail seller services, cloud computing services, and retail subscription services including Amazon Prime.

Through Amazon, consumers are able to purchase goods at a rather discounted price from both small and large companies as well as from other users. Both new and used goods are sold on the website. Due to the wide variety of goods available at prices which often undercut local brick-and-mortar retail offerings, Amazon has dominated the retailer market. As of 2024, Amazon’s brand worth amounts to over 185 billion U.S. dollars, topping the likes of companies such as Walmart, Ikea, as well as digital competitors Alibaba and eBay. One of Amazon's first forays into the world of hardware was its e-reader Kindle, one of the most popular e-book readers worldwide. More recently, Amazon has also released several series of own-branded products and a voice-controlled virtual assistant, Alexa.

Due to its location, Amazon offers more services in North America than worldwide. As a result, the majority of the company’s net revenue in 2023 was actually earned in the United States, Canada, and Mexico. In 2023, approximately 353 billion U.S. dollars was earned in North America compared to only roughly 131 billion U.S. dollars internationally.

In the second quarter of 2024, online shoppers spent an average of about 2.78 U.S. dollars per visit across all verticals. Health and beauty is the category in which consumers spent the most money per visit on average, at 3.27 U.S. dollars, followed by home furniture at 3.09 dollars. 

Over the past few years, the average order value for e-commerce purchases has increased globally, from around 118 U.S. dollars in September 2022 to around 126 U.S. dollars in the same month of 2023. The average order value also depends heavily on the online traffic source consumers use. In 2023, the value per order value was the highest when navigating directly, averaging around 167 dollars. Direct navigation means searching for a website directly in the browser's address bar, bypassing the use of search engines. Orders placed from social media stores were the lowest in value, with an average of less than 110 dollars.

Online shoppers have clear preferences when it comes to device type. When comparing gadgets, the average purchase amount has always been the highest for desktops, with an order value of 170 U.S. dollars. This indicates that bigger purchases are made via desktop computers. However, consumers are more likely to complete orders when shopping on mobile devices. Mobile devices were also clearly preferred when browsing retail websites, with around three-fourths of consumers using smartphones instead of desktops or tablets.

The market size of the global online food delivery sector was estimated at over one trillion U.S. dollars in 2023, of which 630 billion dollars were generated in the grocery delivery segment, and 390 billion dollars in the meal delivery segment. By 2029, the online food delivery market is forecast to generate revenues reaching 1.85 trillion U.S. dollars.

Online conversion rates of e-commerce sites were the highest in the beauty and health sector, at almost three percent in the second quarter of 2024. Food and beverage followed, with a 2.4 percent conversion rate. For comparison, the average conversion rate of e-commerce sites across all selected sectors stood at just over 1.9 percent. 

The conversion rate, which indicates the proportion of visits to e-commerce websites that result in purchases, varies by country and region. For instance, since at least 2023, e-commerce sites have consistently recorded higher conversion rates among shoppers in Great Britain compared to those in the United States and other global regions. Furthermore, despite the increasing prevalence of mobile shopping worldwide, conversions remain more pronounced on larger screens such as tablets and desktops.

Recently, the rate at which consumers abandon their online shopping carts has been gradually rising to more than 70 percent in 2024, showing a higher difficulty for e-commerce sites to convert website traffic into purchases. By the end of that year, food and beverage was one of the product categories with the lowest online cart abandonment rate, confirming the sector’s relatively high conversion rate. In the United States, the primary reason why customers abandoned their shopping carts is that extra costs such as shipping, tax, and service fees were too high at checkout.

In 2024, refund/policy abuse was the most common type of fraud experienced by just under half of online merchants worldwide. First-party misuse (also known as “friendly fraud”) affected another 45 percent of merchants. Both refund/policy abuse and first-party misuse occur post-purchase, so unlike phishing or card testing, are not attacks that can be stopped in real-time, making them more difficult for online merchants to manage.

Asia leads the ranking of biggest e-commerce markets worldwide. The total revenue of online retail in Asian countries added up to nearly 1.7 trillion U.S. dollars in 2023. This was approximately 800 million U.S. dollars higher than the e-commerce revenue reached in the Americas. Australia, Oceania, and Africa achieved far lower e-commerce revenues in 2023, with values below 40 billion U.S. dollars. Asia’s leading position can mostly be ascribed to China, which achieved a revenue of over 935 billion U.S. dollars in 2023.

How dominant is Asia in e-commerce? The e-commerce market is highly developed on the Asian continent, and will continue to grow. For instance, India is the country with the highest Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) for its e-commerce market. Between 2023 and 2027, the market value is forecast to grow with over 14 percent annually. The Latin-American e-commerce market is also forecast to grow quickly in the coming years.

Large Asian e-commerce markets have a strong influence over the rest of the world. A concrete example of an Asian e-commerce channel that is being adopted in the West is the TikTok Shop, connecting social media and e-commerce to form social commerce.

China is leading the ranking by revenue in the fashion e-commerce market, recording 207 billion U.S. dollars. Following closely behind is the United States with 182 billion U.S. dollars, while Russia is trailing the ranking with 6.6 billion U.S. dollars, resulting in a difference of 200.3 billion U.S. dollars to the ranking leader, China.

Find other insights concerning similar markets and segments, such as a ranking of subsegments in the United Kingdom regarding share in the e-commerce market as a whole and a ranking by country regarding revenue in the e-commerce market.

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