30 Global eCommerce Statistics You Need to Know in 2021

And so, data has become more sig­nif­i­cant than ever when it comes to the strate­gic plan­ning and exe­cu­tion of your eCom­merce busi­ness at all lev­els — glob­al, nation­al, and region­al. Under­stand­ing the facts and trends empow­ers you to iden­ti­fy gaps and oppor­tu­ni­ties, so you can make data-dri­ven busi­ness decisions.

In this blog, we have put togeth­er 30 impor­tant glob­al and spe­cif­ic eCom­merce sta­tis­tics emar­keters need to know.

• Glob­al eCom­merce Stats

• Con­sumer Behav­iour Stats

• Mobile eCom­merce Stats

• Dig­i­tal Pay­ment Stats

• Covid-19 eCom­merce Stats

Glob­al Ecom­merce Sta­tis­tics (Edi­tor’s Choice)

• Glob­al retail eCom­merce sales reached 4.28 tril­lion USD in 2020 and are expect­ed to grow to 5.4 tril­lion USD in 2022.

• In 2020, UK’s inter­net retail sales were up 46.1%, com­pared to the pre­vi­ous year. 

• Online sales account­ed for 18% of all retail sales world­wide in 2020, and this fig­ure is pro­ject­ed to reach 21.8 % in 2024.

• Click and col­lect turnover in the UK is expect­ed to reach 11.9 bil­lion euros by 2023, from an esti­mat­ed 3.2 bil­lion euros in 2013.

• The fash­ion and appar­el indus­try is the largest seg­ment of DTC eCom­merce. Its glob­al size is expect­ed to exceed 1 tril­lion USD by the end of 2025.

• In 2021, over 2.14 bil­lion peo­ple world­wide are expect­ed to buy goods and ser­vices online, up from 1.66 bil­lion glob­al dig­i­tal buy­ers in 2016.

• As of April 2021, the most pop­u­lar online mar­ket­place in the UK was the U.S. Amer­i­can behe­moth Ama­zon, reg­is­ter­ing about 407 mil­lion visits/​month.

• In 2022, cross-bor­der eCom­merce is pro­ject­ed to account for 22% of eCom­merce ship­ments of phys­i­cal products.

• Chi­na is the world leader in eCom­merce, where­as the UK($169.02 bil­lion) and Ger­many are the most sig­nif­i­cant Euro­pean eCom­merce markets.

Con­sumer Behav­iour Stats

• The e‑commerce indus­try is set to expand and evolve, as dig­i­tal buy­er pen­e­tra­tion is pro­ject­ed to sur­pass 65.2% of inter­net users world­wide in 2021.

• Free deliv­ery and discounts/​coupons are the top two rea­sons con­sumers pre­fer to buy items online, accord­ing to the 2020 report by Glob­al­We­bIndex.

• Accord­ing to Shopi­fy, almost three-quar­ters (73%) of con­sumers use mul­ti­ple chan­nels dur­ing their shop­ping journey.

• The aver­age shop­ping cart aban­don­ment rate glob­al­ly is 69.61%. Where­as it is approx. 80% in the UK from mobiles devices. 

• About one in three UK con­sumers used Buy Now Pay Lat­er (BNPL) meth­ods when pur­chas­ing casu­al wear.

• Per­son­alised emails deliv­er 6X high­er trans­ac­tion rates.

• 68% of online shop­pers search for a prod­uct on Google before purchasing.

Mobile eCom­merce Stats

Mobile traf­fic has now sur­passed desk­top, and it’s not going to slow down. These mar­ket­ing stats show us what to expect with mobile marketing.

• Mobile is the future of online shop­ping. In 2020, 55.4% of con­sumers bought goods or ser­vices online via mobile devices.

• The esti­mat­ed mobile as a share of total eCom­merce is pro­ject­ed to reach 72.9% world­wide by the end of this year.

• Apple Pay alone has over 383 mil­lion users world­wide, which is more than five times the num­ber of peo­ple in the UK alone.

• UAE is the coun­try with the fastest aver­age mobile inter­net speed in 2021, with an aver­age con­nec­tion speed of 194.04 Mbps.

• The rev­enue of the glob­al mobile com­merce indus­try is expect­ed to reach 3.56 tril­lion USD by 2021.

Dig­i­tal Pay­ment Stats

• As the largest seg­ment with­in Fin­Tech, dig­i­tal pay­ments’ glob­al trans­ac­tion val­ue reached 5,204 bil­lion USD in 2020.

• Dig­i­tal and mobile wal­lets were already the most pop­u­lar online pay­ment method world­wide with a share pro­ject­ed to reach 51.7% in 2024. Com­par­a­tive­ly, cred­it cards are expect­ed to decline to 20.8% in 2024.

• In 2020, the UK was the biggest Dig­i­tal Pay­ments mar­ket in Europe with $218.3 billion. 

• Dig­i­tal and Mobile Wal­lets such as Pay­Pal, Apple Pay, and Google Pay, account­ed for almost 45% of glob­al eCom­merce trans­ac­tions in 2020. 

• Pay­Pal is the pre­ferred pay­ment method among online shop­pers world­wide with 40% of online shop­pers using it.

Covid-19 eCom­merce Stats

The glob­al COVID-19 pan­dem­ic sparked a wave of inter­est in online shop­ping amongst new demo­graph­ics and new verticals.

• In Octo­ber 2019, the key­word ​“buy online” gen­er­at­ed 18,100 month­ly online search­es world­wide. The search vol­ume for this key­word reached 27,100 in May 2020.

• A recent Fujit­su study revealed that COVID-19 is accel­er­at­ing dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tions in the retail indus­try, where 79.1% of retail­ers planned to use dig­i­tal mar­ket­ing in 2021.

• 38% of con­sumers say they’re more com­fort­able with dig­i­tal tech­nol­o­gy than they were before COVID-19 lockdowns.

• The food and gro­ceries indus­try saw 605% growth from Jan­u­ary to April 2020, the biggest increase in online sales for any industry.

As the eCom­merce indus­try is ever-evolv­ing, it’s impor­tant to keep up-to-date with the most recent research and trends. We hope these sta­tis­tics give you some insight into the lat­est from the eCom­merce and dig­i­tal mar­ket­ing world.

Whether you need help to increase your online sales, or you want to sell online for the first time, we can sup­port you with our cre­ative design, devel­op­ment, and dig­i­tal mar­ket­ing ser­vices. We also offer eCom­merce con­sult­ing and ongo­ing sup­port ser­vices to help you with your dig­i­tal growth. Con­tact us to find out more.