Global eCommerce Trends Forecast for 2022

Experts predict that trends for eCommerce sales will exceed $6 trillion worldwide in 2022.

This is the highest eCommerce has ever been. 

After two years of unusual growth patterns (hello Coronavirus!), Insider Intelligence and eMarketer predict that worldwide retail and eCommerce spending will continue to grow. And growing eCommerce will mean great things for online businesses.

Contents

1. Global Retail Growth
2. Yearly eCommerce Growth
3. ECommerce Spending
4. New eCommerce Buyers

Global Retail Growth

In 2019, eCommerce sales increased by 20.6% from 2018. In 2020, sales increased by 26.4% and in 2021 by 16.3%.

It is predicted that eCommerce sales will increase by 12.2% in 2022.

So what does this mean for eCommerce businesses?

It means that even after so many people began buying eCommerce products during the pandemic, there are still increases to be made. Consumers are not using eCommerce for all their purchases yet, and there are still some individuals who prefer brick and mortar stores. However, this is decreasing each year.

Are you looking to capitalise on the growth in global retail sales? Megantic can help position your website to increase your website traffic through the organic channel.

Yearly eCommerce Growth Trends

ECommerce is predicted to grow by 12.2% in 2022. This is equivalent to a huge $604 billion in pure growth.

This is unfortunately slow by recent standards, being only half the average growth over the past ten years. In 2021, eCommerce grew by 16.3%. 

However, the last two years are huge outliers. Any change in 2020 or 2021 is not reliable and is not how we should base future estimates.

For example:

In 2019, eCommerce was predicted to grow by 4.4% during 2020, but it actually grew by a massive 18.4%. The majority of this is due to lockdowns and the inability for shoppers to visit in store. They were forced to purchase online. This was not a consumer choice, it was a necessity.

eCommerce Spending Trends

eCommerce spending will reach a huge $5.5 trillion dollars in 2022. This is a 12.2% increase from 2021, which had a worldwide eCommerce spending of $4.9 trillion dollars.

Future predictions are that worldwide eCommerce spending will reach $6.1 trillion in 2023, $6.8 trillion in 2024 and surpass $7.4 trillion in 2025. This is an average increase of 16.3% each year.

Here’s that data in an easy-to-read graph. As you can see, this is a very linear graph with equal predictions each year. It is not predicted that there will be any worldwide shakers (like another pandemic!).

But what does this mean?

It means that it is becoming increasingly more important to make sure you have an eCommerce site. It is simply unrealistic to exclusively rely on brick and mortar stores to bring in huge profits. You need an eCommerce store to see these 16.3% yearly increases in profits.

New eCommerce Buyers

In 2022, over 2.5 billion people worldwide will shop online.

But this growth only equates to a 3.4% increase, nowhere near the huge 12.3% increase in 2020.

Why is this?

Because most people who have the means to purchase online, have already done so.

What we can extrapolate is that most new eCommerce buyers will be in the younger demographic (under 25), as they just begin to get credit cards and have discretionary funds. This is great news for businesses who have this demographic as their target market, for example, fashion, technology, gaming and makeup.

Earlier we stated that consumers using eCommerce was by necessity in 2020. There currently are no lockdowns in 2022, yet we still see eCommerce booming. 

Perhaps this global disaster was all people needed to begin trusting eCommerce for the long run?

The full report on these trends can be found on Insider Intelligence and eMarketer.