According to estimates, Amazon claimed the top spot among online retailers in the United States in 2023, capturing 37.6 percent of the market. Second place was occupied by the e-commerce site of the retail chain Walmart, with a 6.4 percent market share, followed in third place by Apple, with 3.6 percent.

Amazon’s continued success

Amazon has long dominated the e-commerce market as the world’s favorite online marketplace. In 2022, company hit over half a trillion U.S. dollars in net sales. The United States is by far Amazon’s most profitable market, as the U.S. branch generated over 356 billion U.S. dollars in sales in 2022. Germany ranked second, with 33 billion dollars, followed closely by the United Kingdom with 30 billion dollars.

Online shopping on the rise

Online shopping has grown significantly over the past decade, with more people turning to the internet for their shopping needs. The proof is in the numbers: the U.S. e-commerce industry was worth almost a trillion dollars in 2023. By 2027, forecasts show that the online market will grow to more than 50 percent. U.S. online shoppers purchase fashion and food and beverages the most via the internet.

WooCommerce was the worldwide leading e-commerce software platform in 2024, with a market share of 39 percent. Squarespace Online Stores and Woo Themes ranked second and third, with shares of 14.75 and 13.96 percent, respectively. E-commerce software E-commerce software is the technology that manages the online store processes, from managing inventory, to adding or removing products, to calculating taxes and fulfilling orders. The e-commerce software application market had an estimated value of around 5.1 U.S. dollars in 2018 and is forecast to grow to approximately 7.4 billion U.S. dollars by 2023. Given the fast growth of e-commerce sales – global retail e-commerce sales are forecast to reach 7.4 trillion U.S. dollars by 2025 – it is hardly surprising that the e-commerce software market is also expanding. Online shopping Smartphone is the device that consumers use the most when shopping online: 71 percent of retail website traffic comes from the mobile device. China and South Korea are the countries with the highest online shopping penetration rate: in both countries, 83 percent of the consumers are used to shopping online. Given the size of the Chinese consumer market, it is no surprise that Chinese companies are the leading e-retailers worldwide – Alibaba, ranked first with a market share of 24 percent in 2021. With 13 percent market share, the American e-retailer giant Amazon came as a second.

Alibaba was the top company worldwide in terms of gross merchandise volume (GMV) share across the web. The Chinese e-retail giant which provides consumers business-to-business (B2B), consumer-to-consumer (C2C), and business-to-consmer (B2C) e-commerce accounted for 20 percent of the overall online GMV in 2023. Amazon ranked second, accounting for 12 percent of overall online GMV.

In 2025, Brazil was forecast to hold approximately ** percent of the e-commerce market in Latin America and the Caribbean, closely followed by Mexico with over ** percent of the e-commerce revenue in the region. Throughout the year, various economies in the region were poised to increase their market share, with Brazil and Mexico exhibiting the most substantial growth in online sales. The largest market has a foreign leader In 2024, Latin America saw its largest e-commerce economy thrive. That year, online shopping in Brazil generated nearly *** billion Brazilian reals in revenue. Competition among online retailers for Brazilian shoppers is fierce, but Mercado Libre (Mercado Livre in Brazil), founded in Argentina, remains at the forefront. In February 2025 alone, this marketplace attracted close to *** million shoppers to its platform, surpassing its closest rival, Amazon Brasil, by around ** percent. Mobile commerce: a game-changer Mobile devices have played a pivotal role in democratizing internet access and online purchasing in Latin America. By the end of 2025, mobile retail e-commerce sales in the region were forecast to reach approximately *** billion U.S. dollars, quadrupling the 2019 figures before the COVID-19 pandemic. In Brazil, books were the most purchased product category via mobile devices in 2024.

Mobile phones dominate global digital commerce website visits and contribute to the largest share of online orders. As of the fourth quarter of 2024, smartphones constituted around 78 percent of retail site traffic globally, responsible for generating 68 percent of online shopping orders. Marketplace momentum Retail e-commerce has significantly increased globally over the past few years. Currently, the leading countries in retail e-commerce growth, such as the Philippines, have seen an increase of up to 24 percent. In 2024, the majority of online purchases worldwide were made on online marketplaces, incurring around a 30 percent share of consumer purchases. The top four retail websites for consumers to visit globally were all marketplaces, with the leading website being Amazon.com. Converting clicks When shopping online, website visits often do not end in purchases. This can be due to having second thoughts when online shopping, or simply due to consumers using the platforms to search for products. In 2024, the conversion rate of online shoppers globally was just over two percent, with food and beverages incurring the highest conversion rate from online purchases. Across the globe, almost 20 percent of all retail sales were conducted online. This figure is forecast to increase to at least 21 percent by 2027.

Online conversion rates of e-commerce sites were the highest in the food & beverage sector, at 3.1 percent in the fourth quarter of 2024. Beauty & skincare followed, with a three percent conversion rate. For comparison, the average conversion rate of e-commerce sites across all selected sectors stood at just over two percent. How does conversion vary by region and device? The conversion rate, which indicates the proportion of visits to e-commerce websites that result in purchases, varies by country and region. For instance, since at least 2023, e-commerce sites have consistently recorded higher conversion rates among shoppers in Great Britain compared to those in the United States and other global regions. Furthermore, despite the increasing prevalence of mobile shopping worldwide, conversions remain more pronounced on larger screens such as tablets and desktops. Online shopping cart abandonment on the rise Recently, the rate at which consumers abandon their online shopping carts has been gradually rising to more than 70 percent in 2024, showing a higher difficulty for e-commerce sites to convert website traffic into purchases. By the end of that year, food and beverage was one of the product categories with the lowest online cart abandonment rate, confirming the sector’s relatively high conversion rate. In the United States, the primary reason why customers abandoned their shopping carts is that extra costs such as shipping, tax, and service fees were too high at checkout.

In 2023, e-commerce comprised over 15.6 percent of total retail sales in the United States. Forecasts suggest that this proportion will continue to rise steadily in the coming years, reaching approximately 20.6 percent by 2027.

Fashion fever

The digital revolution has significantly changed how retail is done, impacting a wide range of product categories. Out of all e-commerce product categories, apparel and accessories are the most purchased online in the United States. As of February 2023, roughly 18 percent of all fashion retail sales took place online. Furniture and home furnishing, as well as computer and consumer electronics, ranked second, with over 15 percent of each product category purchased via the internet. The product categories that are least purchased online are office equipment and supplies (1.4 percent) and books, music, and video (5.1 percent).

Shopping hotspots

Amazon dominates the e-commerce industry in the United States, though other competitors still have significant market share. In December 2023, amazon.com was the most-visited e-commerce and shopping site in the United States. That month, around 45 percent of all visits to e-commerce sites were made to Amazon. Other popular shopping sites include ebay.com, walmart.com, etsy.com, and target.com. The staggering proportion of online retail sales in the country attributed to Amazon is quite remarkable. In 2023, Amazon's website accounted for almost half of all online computer and consumer electronics sales. Similarly, nearly one-third of online fashion purchases in the country were made on Amazon.

In 2024, global retail e-commerce sales reached an estimated six trillion U.S. dollars. Projections indicate a 31 percent growth in this figure over the coming years, with expectations to come close to eight trillion dollars by 2028. World players Among the key players on the world stage, the American marketplace giant Amazon holds the title of the largest e-commerce player globally, with a gross merchandise value of nearly 800 billion U.S. dollars in 2024. Amazon was also the most valuable retail brand globally, followed by mostly American competitors such as Walmart and the Home Depot. Leading e-tailing regions E-commerce is a dormant channel globally, but nowhere has it been as successful as in Asia. In 2024, the e-commerce revenue in that continent alone was measured at nearly two trillion U.S. dollars, outperforming the Americas and Europe. That year, the up-and-coming e-commerce markets also centered around Asia. The Philippines and India stood out as the swiftest-growing e-commerce markets based on online sales, anticipating a growth rate surpassing 20 percent.

In 2022, the online shopping business with the largest market share in e-commerce was Coupang, with 24.5 percent. Following was NAVER Shopping with a share of around 23.3 percent in the e-commerce market.

In 2023, Alibaba ranked first among China's comprehensive e-commerce retailers, with a market share of 46 percent. JD.com ranked second with a GMV share of 27.2 percent. E-commerce retail in ChinaChina has become one of the world’s largest e-commerce markets. As a major driver of the country’s retail economy, e-commerce sales share experienced a considerable rise from 10.6 percent of the total retail sales in 2014, to about 27.6 percent in 2023. The e-commerce retail sales value was estimated to reach 3.99 trillion U.S. dollars by 2026. Alibaba: the e-commerce giantEstablished in 1999, Alibaba.com was founded by Jack Ma, who stepped down as chairman in September 2019. Initially, Alibaba was a traditional e-commerce company but has now transformed into a conglomerate. It has a wide range of business including services such as financial, logistics, digital media, and cloud computing. In fiscal year 2023, the revenue of Alibaba amounted to around 868.7 billion yuan. The number of active consumers across Alibaba's online shopping properties reached 903 million in the first quarter of 2022. Alibaba Group launched the Singles’ Day marketing plan in 2008, focusing on offering numerous discounts, red packet coupons, and promotions to improve sales on November 11 (or 11.11). This date was chosen to represent single people among Chinese youth from the early 1990s. In 2021, Alibaba's gross merchandise volume on Singles' Day skyrocketed to 84.54 billion U.S. dollars. This represented an astonishing growth from 0.82 billion U.S. dollars just a decade earlier.

As of January 2025, Shopify was the biggest name in the U.S. e-commerce software market, used by roughly 30 percent of websites that use e-commerce technologies. The market’s other major competitors include Wix Stores around 23 percent, WooCommerce Checkout, and Squarespace Add to Cart, each of which boasts a market share of around 15 percent. E-commerce E-commerce is the term used to describe the broad spectrum of products and services which are bought and sold over the internet. It can include everything from the sale of physical good on sites like Amazon, to the online provision of software offered by companies like Google. Often seen as the future of commerce, the market has grown rapidly, especially in the U.S., where it accounts for around 15 percent of overall retail sales in 2021. The retail e-commerce sales in the U.S. is projected to bring in 933 billion U.S. dollars in revenue in 2021. Such booming sales signals strong demand for the software support behind e-commerce platforms, and estimates suggest that the e-commerce software application market alone will be worth over 6.5 billion dollars by the end of 2021. E-commerce companies The undisputed biggest name in e-commerce internationally is Amazon.com. The company brought in more than 197 billion U.S. dollars in revenue from its online stores in 2020. Other major competitors include Chinese brands Alibaba and Jingdong. Alibaba's annual revenue amounted to more than 717 billion yuan in it's 2021 fiscal year, which translates to around 115 billion U.S. dollars. The annual sales of Jingdong (JD.com) reached a record high of 746 billion yuan in 2020, which is the equavalent of 112 billion U.S. dollars.

As of the first half of 2023, Shopee dominated the e-commerce marketplace in Vietnam, accounting for over 60 percent of the total market share. Surpassing Lazada, TikTok Shop ranked second among the leading platforms, taking up approximately 20 percent of the market share. TikTok Shop is an in-app e-commerce solution that enables users to sell and buy products directly within TikTok.

In 2023, the B2C e-commerce platform Momo, established in 2004, had approximately 26.7 percent of Taiwan's e-commerce market. In that year, PChome took up about 9.3 percent of e-commerce market share in Taiwan.

In the first quarter of 2024, Shopee represented the largest market share among e-commerce platforms in Vietnam, at 67.9 percent. The platform also had the highest number of sellers, exceeding 262,000. Meanwhile, TikTok Shop has been expanding fast, accounting for 23.2 percent of the e-commerce market in the country during that quarter.

The statistic shows the leading e-commerce platforms worldwide in 2021. At that time, Shopify was run on 20 percent of e-commerce sites worldwide. E-commerce platforms provide a virtual store for consumers to buy products and services. The software provides both a virtual storefront as well as a variety of other services necessary for a retailer to run their business, such as inventory and customer relationship management or marketing and promotional tools.

In 2023, the online channels' share of total retail sales reached 15.4 percent in the United States. This represented an increase compared to 2022, when it was 14.6 percent.

As of January 2025, Shopify was the e-commerce platform with the biggest market share in Canada by quite a large margin at over 30 percent. At 24 percent, Wix Strores had the second biggest market share, which was followed by Squarespace with their Add to cart (18 percent), WooCommerce Checkout (13 percent) and Ecwid (four percent).

In 2022, the smartphone segment of the Indian e-commerce retail market accounted for 33 percent of the total market share in India. This was followed by electronics and appliances with a market share of just over 20 percent.

The internet boom

Reliance Retail leads the telecommunication revolution Supported by it’s subsidiary, Jio, founded in 2007 offering very cheap packages for mobile internet and sim cards. Competitors like Bharti Airtel could hardly keep up, but finally adapted, offering similarly cheap packages. Affordable internet made it attractive for all social groups to explore the possibilities of the world wide web. The digitalization of government services through the Indian government’s initiative for a digital India, further pushed the usage of internet in India.

From internet user to online shopper

The triumphant advance of the internet in India entailed not only a new means of communication but also new opportunities for the market. Alongside the expansion of internet usage, the penetration of online shoppers increased. Although cash-on-delivery was a popular means of payment for online shoppers, digital payment methods expanded. Another expansion was pushed by the coronavirus pandemic in 2020. Due to the nationwide lockdowns, contactless online shopping appeared to be a safe alternative.

In 2023, retail dominated the e-commerce landscape in Latin America, estimated to encompass over half of the market share. Concurrently, the travel sector represented 13 percent of online sales, trailing behind ride-hailing and delivery apps, streaming services, and gaming.

In 2019, the ten leading e-commerce companies in the United States had a market share of 58.2 percent. In 2020, this share is projected to increase to 60.1 percent of the online retail market. All other U.S. online retail e-commerce platforms will account for the other 39.9 percent of sales.