Consumer Behavior

Pandemic spurring spike in e-commerce activity

Photo by istock.com

March 17, 2021

The global e-commerce market will hit 3.8 billion users this year, a 10% spike compared to 2020, and the prime reason is the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, according to data from Finaria.it.

"The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the shift away from brick-and-mortar stores to digital shopping, as millions of consumers worldwide turned to webshops amid the lockdown. This coronavirus-led boom in online sales caused a surge in the number of users and revenues of the entire eCommerce market," stated a press release on the research findings.

Just four years ago 2.4 billion consumers shopped online, according to the release.

Statistics show the Chinese e-commerce market, the largest globally, is expected to grow by 12.8% year-over-year in 2021.

With $469.3 billion in e-commerce sales revenue, or 2.5 times less than leading China, the U.S. market ranks as the second-largest globally.