Ecommerce has transformed the retail landscape in recent years, accounting for a growing percentage of global sales to consumers and businesses. Ecommerce revenue is expected to continue to expand as internet access spreads worldwide and consumers in all age groups become more comfortable with purchasing big-ticket items online.

As more and more businesses enter the ecommerce space, the challenge arises of how to remain competitive. Tracking ecommerce statistics and buying trends can help businesses fine-tune their marketing and sales efforts, whether they are selling to consumers, other businesses, or both.

67 Ecommerce Stats

Ecommerce statistics help businesses gauge how customers are spending their money and where to focus their efforts. The statistics in this article track the market’s size and rapid growth — both worldwide and in individual countries. They also highlight changes in consumers’ buying habits and the factors that influence their purchasing decisions (all of which can vary based on their age), as well as the problems they encounter when trying to buy online.

Statistics can also suggest ways that businesses can improve consumers’ online experience and generate more sales.

General Ecommerce Stats

Ecommerce growth surged worldwide and has rapidly shifted to online sales.

  1. As of 2023, an estimated 2.64 billion people worldwide are purchasing goods or services online — that’s about 33% of the world’s total population.
  2. In 2022, retail e-commerce sales were estimated to exceed US$5.7 trillion globally, and this figure is expected to grow in the coming years.
  3. By the end of 2023, it is estimated that one in five retail sales will be made online.
  4. In 2022, 82% of all Australian households shopped online, according to Australia Post. In the same year, 59.05% of the total Singaporean population used an online store to make a purchase.
  5. Oberlo predicts that, by 2026, the global ecommerce share of retail sales will grow to 23.3%.
  6. Business-to-business (B2B) ecommerce sales are soaring. The global B2B ecommerce market was valued at US$7.9 billion in 2022 and is projected to expand by 20.2% annually from 2023 to 2030.
  7. China leads the world in ecommerce adoption, per eMarketer. China is expected to generate over US$3 trillion in ecommerce sales in 2023 and is the only country likely to exceed $2 trillion.
  8. According to a December 2022 forecast by Statista, the ecommerce market is predicted to grow most significantly in Asia and the Americas. Philippines and India lead the pack with online sales forecasted to increase by 24.1% and 22.3% respectively.

Ecommerce vs. Brick-and-Mortar Stats

In general, ecommerce has taken off at the expense of sales at brick-and-mortar stores. But some traditional retailers are finding ways to take advantage of online channels to drive sales, while some online retail traffic is heading back into physical stores.

  1. In Australia, consumers spent a record A$353 billion (SG$315.9) billion in 2022, according to Australia Post, and 18.1% of retail spend was through online shopping. Ecommerce is also a growing form of shopping for consumers in Singapore, with online retail sales making up an estimated 14.8% of total retail sales (valued at SG$4.0 billion/A$4.5 billion) in November 2022.
  2. The ecommerce penetration rate in the Asia-Pacific region is expected to grow to 35% by 2026, according to forecasts by CBRE, even if that penetration rate will vary across different product categories.
  3. Despite the rise of online sales, consumers still crave brick-and-mortar experiences. A Retail Express study found 67% of Australian respondents said that a physical store is an important 'touch point'. 34% of Aussies expressed a new appreciation for interacting with others, and the tactile experience of touching or trying on a product. Similarly, 61% of Singaporean consumers felt that online shopping can never replace being in-store, and considered product availability (46%) and not having to queue for a long time (43%) as components for a great in-store shopping experience, per Sensormatic Solutions. Overall, research by CBRE found close to half of retailers surveyed in the study believe a portion of online spending will shift back to physical stores following the rush to the online channel that arose as a result of the pandemic.
  4. Since the pandemic first hit, many businesses in the APAC retail industry continue to heavily rely on ecommerce to maintain sales, with almost 60% of respondents in research by KPMG reporting a ‘slight’ or ‘significant’ increase of sales in the online channel.
  5. Many consumers also expect a click-and-collect offering, with PwC research finding some 33% of survey respondents indicate they find this capability appealing in a physical store shopping experience.

Ecommerce Shopping Cart Stats

Many ecommerce transactions are never completed because users abandon their shopping carts before finishing the checkout process. Understanding why they leave can help businesses increase revenue.

  1. The online shopping cart abandonment rate in the APAC region during 2022 was 76.32%, according to research by Statista, representing a significant amount of online shopping orders that were not converted into a purchase.
  2. There are many reasons why consumers put together an order that they end up abandoning, according to Statista, including wishful thinking, planning a dream vacation or just checking how expensive the total order is going to be.
  3. Research from the Baymard Institute suggests that, in general, a large proportion of cart abandonments is simply a natural consequence of how people browse e-commerce sites, with many consumers window shopping online, comparing prices, saving items for later or merely exploring options.

Consumer Ecommerce Stats

Consumers are driving much of the worldwide growth in ecommerce. They are increasingly comfortable making big purchases online and are eager to discover new products and experiences.

  1. Online-first shoppers in APAC are increasingly driven by novelty. According to a study by YouGov, 62% of online consumers in Singapore and Thailand said they like “trying new brands” and 53% of Australian online shoppers said they like to “experiment with different products/brands”. With brick-and-mortar stores limited in the amount of product they can hold on shelves at one time, shopping online provides a greater amount of choice and convenience for novelty-hungry consumers.
  2. APAC consumers are also more open to purchasing expensive items online. While fashion continues to dominate online purchases (77%), bigger-ticket items like personal electronics (73%), consumer electronics (63%), and kitchen appliances (59%) are all predominantly bought online, suggests Reprise.
  3. Furniture is another popular category among online shoppers in the region. By 2026, it is believed that 37% of the global online furniture market’s growth will originate from APAC, according to Technavio.
  4. In October 2023, the world’s most popular ecommerce and shopping websites had an average visit duration of more than seven minutes, and visitors viewed more than nine pages per visit.
  5. Q4 is the peak shopping season in the Asia-Pacific region, with activity traditionally driven by cultural occasions such as Diwali (Deepavali), Christmas, and the lead up to New Year’s Eve and the Lunar New Year. Ecommerce festivals like Black Friday, Singles’ Day and Harbolnas have also become a popular time for shopping, with sales rising +205% on 11th November 2022 for Singles Day in Southeast Asia alone.
  6. Still, many consumers experience frustrating website problems or are dissatisfied with online shopping. Over a third of ASEAN respondents in a Blackbox Research study said they were less than satisfied with their digital commerce experience, citing concerns about delivery costs and services, product reliability, and the authenticity of in-app reviews. In Australia, 40% of Gen Z shoppers responding to a 2022 survey by Sitecore said that they felt businesses were not delivering slick ecommerce experiences, though 67% of consumers still found ecommerce more enjoyable than in-person shopping.

Social Media Stats

Social media is playing an increasingly important role in ecommerce — either directly via transactions on social media platforms, or indirectly by influencing shopper behaviour.

  1. An Australian Shopify study found 49% of consumers said they discover products via Facebook, 35% via YouTube, 30% via Instagram, 19% via TikTok, 15% via Twitter and 7% via Pinterest. In Singapore, many consumers look to social media influencers for shopping inspiration, with approximately 50% of respondents to a Rakuten Insight study stating they had purchased an item because it had been endorsed by an influencer.
  2. A 2021 survey from iKala found that 21% of Singaporean respondents shopped using social networks three to five times a month, and 12% shopped through social media more than five times a month. Ease and convenience was cited as the number one reason why they turned to social shopping (71%), followed by price (70%) and greater variety and choice (46%).
  3. Social shopping is also increasing in popularity in Australia. According to Statista, the number of consumers who made purchases through social media in 2020 amounted to 5.3 million, the equivalent of 28% of all internet users, and the number is forecasted to increase to 6.4 million by 2024. However, lack of trust in the security of social media platforms continues to be a key barrier to adoption, with half of Australians wary about linking financial information to their social media account.

Email Ecommerce Stats

Marketers continue to use email as a primary tool for driving online sales, and it seems consumers also like it that way.

  1. Across APAC, Europe and North America, email marketing is the most widely used technology for customer engagement.
  2. A global study by Gartner found that receiving an email is the second most common touchpoint that customers have with a brand during the purchase experience (37%), second only to visiting a brand’s website (56%).
  3. Email marketing revenue is estimated to reach US$17.9 billion by the end of 2027.
  4. In a 2022 study by Statista, around 60% of marketers shared that their email marketing campaigns had an open rate of more than 20%, with another 4.2% sharing that their open rates were under 10%. Another Statista study found that marketing emails in the financial services sector had the highest click-to-open rate at 16.68%, followed by publishing (14.47%) and communications (11.83%) in 2022. The email unsubscribe rates from various countries in the same year remained under 1%.
  5. The success of an email campaign may depend on which day of the week you contact consumers. In 2022, 35% of respondents to a Statista survey shared that Tuesdays were the most preferred weekday to send out email marketing. Wednesdays came second with 28% of respondents picking them as a suitable day for email campaigning.

Ecommerce Platforms Stats

Ecommerce relies on software platforms that make it easier to build and manage online stores. Ecommerce platforms that are integrated into business software suites can help companies manage sales across multiple channels, handling a wide range of functions from inventory management and order fulfilment to calculating taxes.

  1. The global ecommerce software market was worth US$12.8 billion in 2022, and is expected to have a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 14.6% through to 2030.
  2. Online marketplaces operate the platforms that support much of global business-to-consumer (B2C) and B2B ecommerce. The top online marketplaces sold a total of US$3.25 trillion in goods in 2022. Many businesses buy and sell on marketplaces such as Amazon, eBay or Alibaba, accounting for 77.5% of total gross merchandise value among the Top 100 companies.
  3. In the Asia-Pacific region, Rakuten was the leading ecommerce marketplace in May 2022, with over 218 million average monthly visits, according to Statista. Amazon.com came in second with approximately 181 million average monthly visits. The popularity of these ecommerce giants is a reason many large retailers are launching their own marketplaces.

Mobile Ecommerce Stats

Smartphones have overtaken computers as the devices most commonly used for online shopping — but some consumers still prefer to make actual purchases through their desktop.

  1. According to Statista, mobile commerce sales in 2022 amounted to over half of the total ecommerce in all Asia-Pacific countries, except for Japan, where it was 39%. New ecommerce markets in mobile-first economies are a large driver of this trend.
  2. In a survey by Checkout.com, 63% of APAC respondents said that they most commonly shopped within a mobile app. This percentage rose to 70% when looking at consumers in Singapore, while only 32% of consumers in Australia said using a mobile app was how they most frequently shopped.
  3. Globally, the mobile commerce market is expected to have a CAGR of 32.4% by 2028, and the spread of higher-speed 5G mobile networks may further boost mobile commerce by enabling a faster shopping experience.
  4. Just over half (51%) of APAC consumers shop through their mobile phones daily, according to YouGov.
  5. Many shoppers still prefer to purchase products through desktops, though. A Contentsquare survey found that while consumers may be turning to their mobiles more to browse online stores, many still prefer to make actual purchases on their desktop, with a 109% increase in desktop conversions compared to a 75% rise in mobile conversions during Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales in APAC.
  6. Mobile messaging apps are expected to play a critical role in online consumer marketing over the next few years.Globally, WhatsApp ranks as the most popular messaging app with 2 billion monthly active users as of 2023, followed by WeChat and Facebook Messenger, per Statista.

Conversion Rate Optimisation Stats

Optimising your ecommerce website to deliver a better experience can lead to higher conversion rate optimisation (CRO), which is the percentage of website visitors who engage with your company online and ultimately buy products and services.

  1. The four most effective approaches to increasing conversion rates are digital analytics, A/B testing (comparing the performance of two different versions of a web page or site), user-experience design and focusing on copywriting, according to one 2020 survey.
  2. Nearly 100% of CRO teams use A/B tests, and 38% compare the performance of more than two variants of a webpage.
  3. In one analysis of leading ecommerce websites, testers found 2,700 usability issues during the process of completing their order. The analysis suggested that the average site can increase its conversion rate by 35% simply by improving checkout design, which could translate into recovering US$260 billion worth of orders that might otherwise be lost.

Customer Service Stats

The rise of ecommerce is accompanied by a rise in online customer service, which can enable companies to support bigger online sales volumes without hiring more people. But in many cases, skilled humans will still be needed to answer customers’ more complicated questions.

  1. Organisations will increase digital customer service one-and-a-half times by 2024, according to 2022 research from McKinsey. Chatbots and AI tools are identified as some of the key areas for investment, along with automation and advanced analytics capabilities.
  2. But despite the growing popularity of AI and automation in customer service for chatbot conversations, automated answers and self-service processes, most APAC customers still prefer to speak to a live agent over the phone, per a study by Uniphore.
  3. Hiring and training customer service agents is a key challenge facing many organisations, with a Genesys study finding that contact centre turnover in APAC averaged 30-40% with organisations struggling to keep staff continually trained. Similarly, 40% of CX leaders said that labour shortages and increasing hiring costs were the greatest challenge facing their company’s customer experience function today.
  4. Still, quality customer service is key to driving sales. A 2022 report by Zendesk found that 81% of APAC consumers said a positive customer service experience increases the chances of them making another purchase. Conversely, 61% of customers said they would choose a competitor after just one bad customer service experience, a 22% jump from the previous year.

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) Stats

Most consumers use online search to start their hunt for the products they’ll eventually buy. So optimising your website’s SEO performance is crucial to driving ecommerce sales.

  1. A 2023 survey by PwC found more than half (54%) of consumers globally ranked search engines as their top source of pre-purchase information.
  2. In August 2023, Google continued to dominate the search engine market with over 90% market share across APAC as of August 2023, followed by Baidu at 2.36% and Yahoo! At 1.03%. But the highly anticipated integration of artificial intelligence in Microsoft’s search engine, Bing, could see its search engine growing in popularity, with March 2023 data from Similarweb seeing a 15.8% rise in Bing’s page visits and app downloads increasing eight times over since the integration launched.
  3. The top result in Google’s organic search results has an average click-through rate (CTR) of 27.6% and is 10 times more likely to receive a click compared to a page in the 10th spot. Moving up one spot in the search results will increase CTR by 2.8%, however this depends on where you’re moving from and to. Backlinko found that while moving from the third to second position results in a significant CTR boost, the organic CTR for positions eight to 10 are virtually the same.
  4. As of May 2023, the average visitor spends just under 11 minutes on Google.com, and viewed almost nine pages per visit.
  5. The median CTR of paid Google search ads is 3.17%, while Google display ads have an average CTR of 0.46%.

Shopping Traffic, Patterns, Behaviour

Though a majority of all APAC adult age groups now buy on the internet, younger people — unsurprisingly — lead the way. Buyers are becoming more comfortable buying more expensive items online as opposed to in stores. Shoppers love free return policies, but for sellers, those policies can be expensive.

  1. Seventy-four percent of Australian online shoppers made monthly online non-grocery purchases, with online purchases more prevalent among people aged under 50, according to an August 2022 survey from Statista.
  2. In Singapore, more than 59.05% of shoppers make purchases online. Of those willing to shop online, 51% prefer to use their mobile phones to do it, according to research by JP Morgan.
  3. What do people buy most online? According to Statista, clothing (50%) ranked as the most popular category for online purchases in Australia, followed by shoes (37%), bags and accessories (31%) and consumer electronics (29%). Meanwhile in Singapore, Statista found that food and beverages (52%) led the way as the most popular category of products purchased online, followed by clothing, apparel and fashion accessories (50%) and personal hygiene products (38%).
  4. Unsurprisingly, clothes were the most frequently returned items in Australia, with 23% of online shoppers reporting returns of clothing items they purchased online the past 12 months, per Statista. Meanwhile in Southeast Asia, apparel and consumer electronics (which make up the majority of e-commerce sales) are the most often returned product categories, with a fifth of clothing and 10% of consumer electronics sent back, according to McKinsey.
  5. Return rates for e-commerce sales in Southeast Asia are between 15 and 20%, more than twice the median return rate for all sales categories. Customers return online purchases at a much higher-rate than in-store ones, so retailers must find a way to mitigate the expense of returns as the volume keeps increasing.
  6. With a significant number of households having purchased smart speakers in recent years, consumers are increasingly using them to make purchases online. Worldwide, more than 40% of buyers reported regularly purchasing through this channel in 2021, with 60% of those surveyed in Indonesia and Singapore saying they made daily or weekly purchases via their voice assistants, according to Statista.

Payment Stats

Asia-Pacific shoppers are increasingly experimenting with different forms of payment for their ecommerce purchases, from debit and credit cards to Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) and digital wallets.

  1. Across the Asia-Pacific region, digital and mobile wallet payments account for the largest share of ecommerce payment methods, with a 69% share. This number is predicted to increase to 72% by 2025. Looking at Singapore specifically, credit cards remain the most popular method for ecommerce payments, whereas debit cards tend to be used more in economies like Australia and New Zealand, alongside BNPL services which are increasingly available in online checkouts.
  2. Bank transfers and account-to-account (A2A) transactions are also anticipated to start taking a greater share of online purchases in countries like the Philippines, with real-time payment infrastructure set to become more accessible over the next few years.

Impacts of COVID-19

Ecommerce exploded when the pandemic hit, as brick-and-mortar outlets were forced to close and shoppers practised social distancing. Many customers who started shopping online during that time may continue to buy online over the long term. Ecommerce sales increased dramatically for many items that were previously purchased largely or mostly in stores, including groceries.

  1. COVID-19 accelerated ecommerce adoption by half a decade, according to global research from Shopify, with online shopping jumping 77% year over year just months into the pandemic.
  2. In Australia, Australia Post reported that in 2020 online sales accounted for 16.3% of total retail spend and online goods spending increased by 57% since 2019.
  3. Similarly, a Visa study showed 74% of consumers in Singapore shopped online more frequently as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, with 31% making an online purchase for the first time. More than half of consumers also cited that they shopped less frequently in physical stores, highlighting Singaporeans’ decreasing reliance on brick-and-mortar stores in favour of digital-first experiences.
  4. According to Bain and Company, the spread of COVID-19 across APAC hastened the migration of sales from brick-and-mortar stores to online channels.
  5. Online food and beverage sales increased significantly during this time. In April 2020, consumers in Asia-Pacific countries reported a 16 to 70% increase in online spending on food.
  6. While food retail stores have now reopened, online food purchases are expected to remain at elevated levels.
  7. Consumer electronics sales soared in APAC, surpassing US$400 billion in 2020 as people spent more time at home and relied on online services for work, school or recreation. However, the furniture market was severely impacted, falling to $271 billion as the reluctance of consumer spending towards non-essential needs hampered market growth.
  8. The pandemic’s impact on the travel industry was also brutal. Travel restrictions resulted in a cumulative 95.3% decline in international arrivals to APAC between January and July 2021, compared to the same period in 2019. This decrease represented the largest decline in international arrivals globally, with aviation, accommodation and tour operators among the hardest-hit sectors as a result.

Ecommerce is growing steadily and transforming B2B and retail sales worldwide. It’s a vital sales channel for many businesses, especially in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Tracking ecommerce statistics can help businesses understand trends in customer buying behaviour and how to increase revenue.

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Ecommerce FAQs

How well are the ecommerce statistics doing today?

Despite the changes and challenges presented by the easing of COVID-19 restrictions and pressures from inflation rate rises, the ecommerce industry in the Asia-Pacific saw growth of 12.53% to US$3.468.6 billion in 2022.

What percent of sales is ecommerce?

Approximately 20% of all retail sales worldwide are conducted online, according to Statista.

What are the statistics of online shopping?

Online shopping is growing. By 2026, ecommerce will account for more than US$8.1 trillion in sales.

How big is the ecommerce industry?

The APAC region remains the world’s largest ecommerce market and is expected to continue outpacing the rest of the world in terms of growth. According to CBRE, ecommerce penetration in the Asia-Pacific region will rise to 35% by 2026.