Ecommerce Percentage of Retail Sales Increases During COVID

Filed in:
Insight

 

"Online shares in total retail sales in South Korea, China, the U.S., and the UK jump in corona year 2020"

(ecommerceDB)

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The pandemic year 2020 was lucrative for online retail

Many businesses broke sales records during 2020 when the pandemic hit.

Digital transformation was an a essential part of any business first aid kit and all sorts of businesses adopted a digital-first strategy - and those that had already done so, improved and grew even bigger;

• ecommerce giants 
• online supermarkets
• online fashion
• niche online retailers
• nice online food & wine
• office & home
• garden & outdoor

The developments in ecommerce have been fast and generally positive for both retailers and consumers... and they were a lifeline to many during lockdowns.

Key learnings from United Nations Conference on Trade and Development UNCTAD

• the pandamic significantly increased the share that online sales had on total retail sales
• ecommerce share of total retail sales in the UK jumped +7.5% between 2019 & 2020 vs a 0.9% increase between 2018 & 2019. The biggest jump of all countries mentioned
• South Korea, China, UK & the US have the highest ecommerce shares 
• Asia has highest proportion of ecommerce share of retail sales but western countries grew faster in 2020

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Sources

With thanks to ecommercedb