Ecommerce Statistics 2026: Sales, Carts, and Returns
U.S. retail ecommerce sales reached $340.2 billion in the second quarter of 2026, which is 17.1% of all retail sales and 12.2% more than a year earlier (U.S. Census Bureau Quarterly Retail E-Commerce Sales, 2026). The average documented cart abandonment rate is 70.22% (Baymard Institute, 2025), and retailers expect 19.3% of online sales to come back as returns (National Retail Federation and Happy Returns, 2025).
The numbers below come from government releases, company filings, and the publisher’s own report, with the year and the dataset stated so you can cite them cleanly.
How big is ecommerce in the United States
$340.2 billion in U.S. retail ecommerce sales in Q2 2026, seasonally adjusted, up 3.8% from the first quarter (U.S. Census Bureau, 2026).
17.1% of total U.S. retail sales were ecommerce in Q2 2026 (U.S. Census Bureau, 2026). A year earlier the adjusted share was 16.3%.
12.2% year-over-year growth in ecommerce sales in Q2 2026, against 6.7% for total retail (U.S. Census Bureau, 2026).
$1,233.7 billion in U.S. ecommerce sales for the full year 2025, up 5.4% from 2024, as first published (U.S. Census Bureau Q4 2025 release, 2026). Ecommerce was 16.4% of total retail sales in 2025, up from 16.1% in 2024.
How big is ecommerce worldwide
$6.419 trillion in worldwide retail ecommerce sales was the forecast for 2025, growing 6.8%, with ecommerce at 20.5% of global retail sales, up from 19.9% in 2024 (EMARKETER, February 2025 forecast, 2025). This is a forecast from a research firm, not a measured total. No statistical agency publishes a global figure.
Holiday and Cyber Monday online sales
$257.8 billion was spent online in the U.S. from November 1 to December 31, 2025, up 6.8% year over year (Adobe Analytics, 2026).
$14.25 billion was spent online on Cyber Monday 2025, up 7.1%, which made it the biggest ecommerce day of the year (Adobe, 2026). Black Friday brought in $11.8 billion, up 9.1%.
$20 billion of holiday online spend went through buy now, pay later, up 9.8% (Adobe, 2026). Smartphones accounted for 82.2% of those purchases.
$1.29 trillion in global online holiday sales and $294 billion in the U.S., by a different count (Salesforce, 2026). Salesforce aggregates the activity of more than 1.5 billion shoppers on its own commerce platform and sells that platform, so read it as such. Its U.S. total is larger than Adobe’s, so do not mix the two series.
What share of online sales happen on mobile
56.4% of U.S. online holiday spend in 2025 came through a smartphone, up from 54.5% in 2024 (Adobe, 2026). On Christmas Day the mobile share reached 66.5%.
76% of U.S. adults say they ever buy things online using a smartphone, against 69% on a desktop or laptop (Pew Research Center, 2022). 32% do so at least weekly. The survey covered 6,034 adults in July 2022 and is the most recent Pew reading on shopping devices we could find.
What is the average cart abandonment rate
70.22% is the average documented online cart abandonment rate (Baymard Institute, 2025). It is not one measurement. Baymard averages 50 different studies published between 2006 and 2025, whose individual results run from 55% to 84.27%. The list was last updated September 22, 2025.
42% of U.S. online shoppers have abandoned a cart because “I was just browsing / not ready to buy” (Baymard Institute, 2025). Baymard sets that group aside before ranking the other reasons.
40% abandoned because “Extra costs too high (shipping, tax, fees),” the top fixable reason (Baymard Institute, 2025). Next come “Delivery was too slow” at 20%, “I didn’t trust the site with my credit card information” at 19%, “The site wanted me to create an account” at 18%, and “Too long / complicated checkout process” at 17%.
Baymard sells UX research, and the public page does not state the survey’s year or sample size.
What is a good ecommerce conversion rate
2.72% is the average global ecommerce conversion rate over the past twelve months (Dynamic Yield benchmarks, checked September 2026). The data is aggregated across Dynamic Yield’s own customers, about 200 million monthly unique users, so it skews toward larger brands that already run personalization software.
2.88% on mobile against 2.37% on desktop (Dynamic Yield, 2026).
5.39% for beauty and personal care, the highest category over twelve months, and 0.72% for luxury and jewelry, the lowest (Dynamic Yield, 2026).
Ecommerce return rates
19.3% of online sales were expected to be returned in 2025 (NRF and Happy Returns, 2025). For all retail the figure was 15.8% of annual sales, or $849.9 billion, compared with 16.9% and $890 billion in 2024. The report surveyed 358 ecommerce professionals at large U.S. merchants and 2,006 consumers.
9% of all returns are fraudulent (NRF and Happy Returns, 2025).
82% of consumers call free returns a major consideration when making a purchase, up from 76% (NRF and Happy Returns, 2025). 71% say they are less likely to shop with a retailer again after a poor returns experience.
Retention effects are covered in customer retention statistics and service expectations in customer service statistics.
Amazon, Shopify, and Etsy by the numbers
More than 60% of sales in Amazon’s store come from independent sellers (Amazon Small Business Empowerment Report, 2026). More than 75,000 of those sellers passed $1 million in sales in 2025, up 36%, and U.S. sellers averaged more than $375,000.
40.4% of U.S. retail ecommerce sales was Amazon’s estimated share for 2024 (EMARKETER forecast, 2024). Amazon does not publish this number; it is an analyst estimate.
$378.4 billion in gross merchandise volume ran through Shopify in 2025, up 29% from $292.3 billion (Shopify 2025 Form 10-K, 2026). Shopify reports “millions of merchants from more than 175 countries,” 44% of them in the United States, and does not give an exact count.
About 87 million active buyers on the Etsy marketplace over the trailing 12 months, with Q2 2026 gross merchandise sales of $2.6 billion, up 7.5% (Etsy Q2 2026 shareholder letter, 2026).
How AI is changing online shopping
693.4% more traffic reached U.S. retail sites from generative AI tools during the 2025 holiday season than a year earlier (Adobe, 2026). Adobe adds that the base of users “remains modest.”
393% year-over-year growth in AI-sourced traffic to U.S. retail sites in the first three months of 2026 (Adobe Digital Insights, 2026). In March 2026 that traffic converted 42% better than non-AI traffic, a reversal from March 2025, when it converted 38% worse.
$262 billion, or 20% of global holiday retail sales, was driven by AI and agents in 2025 (Salesforce, 2026). This is a vendor estimate that counts product recommendations as AI influence. More in AI marketing statistics and chatbot statistics.
Ecommerce statistics that do not check out
“95% of purchases will be made online by 2040” is usually credited to Nasdaq. The source is a syndicated GuruFocus article about U.K. shopping, published on nasdaq.com on March 14, 2017, which says: “by 2040, it is thought 95% of purchases will be facilitated by e-commerce.” It names no study, and the page carries a disclaimer that the views are the author’s and not Nasdaq’s. Nine years later the measured U.S. share is 17.1% (U.S. Census Bureau, 2026).
“There are 12 to 24 million ecommerce sites” circulates with no methodology attached. A crawler-based count exists: Store Leads tracked 13,795,914 active stores across 408 ecommerce platforms in September 2026. That counts live storefronts, not revenue-generating businesses.
Where a small online seller’s week actually goes
For a one- or two-person store, the back office is an inbox: supplier threads, customer replies, return requests, and the weekly sales summary someone like Emily rebuilds by hand. Carly is an AI assistant that handles that email and follow-up and runs the recurring workflow, for example a Monday order summary from a Shopify store delivered to a doc or a Slack channel. Carly connects to thousands of apps. Related roundups: best AI workflow automation tools and best AI tools for small business owners.
FAQ
What percentage of retail sales are ecommerce? In the U.S., 17.1% of total retail sales in Q2 2026, seasonally adjusted, and 16.4% for the full year 2025 (U.S. Census Bureau, 2026). Worldwide, EMARKETER forecast 20.5% for 2025 (EMARKETER, 2025).
What is the average cart abandonment rate? 70.22%, which is Baymard Institute’s average of 50 published studies (Baymard Institute, 2025). The top fixable reason is extra costs such as shipping, tax, and fees, cited by 40% of U.S. online shoppers who abandoned.
What is the average ecommerce conversion rate? 2.72% globally over the past twelve months across Dynamic Yield’s customer base, with 2.88% on mobile and 2.37% on desktop (Dynamic Yield, 2026). Category averages run from 0.72% to 5.39%.
What percentage of online purchases are returned? Retailers expected 19.3% of online sales to be returned in 2025, against 15.8% for retail overall, and 9% of all returns are fraudulent (NRF and Happy Returns, 2025).
Related: Customer Retention Statistics · Customer Service Statistics · Social Media Statistics · SEO Statistics · Email Statistics
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