According to a report released this morning from the US Commerce Department, sales on the web reached USD 394.86 billion in 2016, a 15.6% increase compared with USD 341.70 billion in 2015.
Total retail sales were USD 4.846 trillion for 2016, a 2.9% jump from USD 4.708 trillion in 2015. However, those figures from the Commerce Department include the sale of items not normally bought online, including fuel and automobiles.
Factoring those items out, as well as sales in restaurants and bars, total retail sales reached USD 3.375 trillion in 2016 – a 3.9% jump compared with USD 3.247 trillion in 2015. Ecommerce sales represented 11.7% of total retail sales in 2016, more than a full percentage point increase compared with a 10.5% share in 2015. It also means that ecommerce represented 41.6% of all retail sales growth in 2016.
The total value of transactions from US consumers on Amazon reached USD 147.0 billion in 2016, a 31.3% increase compared with USD 112.0 billion in 2015, according to Internet Retailer and ChannelAdvisor estimates.
That means that Amazon comprised 65.9% of the USD 53.1 billion growth in the US online retail in 2016, and 27.4% of the USD 127.6 billion increase in the total retail market.
In the Q4, the US ecommerce sales grew 14.3% to USD 123.61 billion from USD 108.18 billion. Nonstore sales occur mainly online but also include categories of retail sales that are declining, such as mail and phone orders, and door-to-door sales. Thus, the growth in nonstore sales is consistently lower than the growth in ecommerce sales.
The 14.3% growth rate for Q4 is the smallest year-over-year increase since the Q4 of 2014, when online retail sales grew 13.9%.
Total retail sales reached USD 1.30 trillion in the Q4, a 3.9% increase compared with USD 1.25 trillion in Q4 of 2015. When factoring out the sale of items not normally bought online, like automobiles, fuel, and bar and restaurant sales, total retail sales reached USD 929.25 billion, a 3.3% jump compared with USD 899.46 billion in the same period of 2015.
That suggests e-commerce represented 13.3% of total retail sales in Q4 compared with 12.0% in Q4 of 2015.
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