U.S.: Ecommerce still accounts for small % of total retail sales

Total retail sales in North America reached $5.254 trillion this year. Of that, $4.785 trillion in sales was from the U.S. In fact, more than a fifth of the world’s retail sales occurred in the U.S. in 2015.

However, despite record-breaking numbers of online sales this year and double-digit growth in total online sales, ecommerce retail still only accounts for 7.1% of all retail sales in the U.S. While that share is growing, eMarketer forecasts that, by 2019, less than 10% of retail sales will be made online.

In Asia-Pacific the share of ecommerce retail sales is the highest in the world – currently at 10.2% – while in Europe 7.5% of retail sales were made online in 2015.