15 E-Commerce Statistics

E-commerce accounted for 17.1 percent of total U.S. retail sales in the second quarter of 2026.

Online is now roughly one-sixth of all retail. The other five-sixths still happens in stores, so omnichannel remains the larger market.

U.S. retail e-commerce sales for the second quarter of 2026 totaled $340.2 billion, adjusted for seasonal variation.

This is the size of the online retail market in a single quarter. It anchors how large the addressable opportunity is for a new store.

Second-quarter 2026 e-commerce sales rose 12.2 percent from a year earlier, while total retail sales rose 6.7 percent.

Online grew nearly twice as fast as retail overall. The share gain is structural, not a seasonal blip.

Total U.S. retail sales for the second quarter of 2026 were estimated at $1,986.5 billion.

This is the full retail market against which the online share is measured. It frames how much room online still has to grow.

The documented average online cart abandonment rate is 70.22 percent, based on 50 separate studies of e-commerce checkout.

About seven in ten carts never convert. This figure averages many studies rather than reporting a single site, which makes it a sturdy benchmark.

When browsing-only visits are excluded, the top reason for checkout abandonment is extra costs being too high, such as shipping, tax, and fees, cited by 40 percent.

Surprise costs at checkout are the single biggest deal-breaker. Showing the full price earlier removes the most common reason buyers walk.

Not trusting the site with card details drives abandonment for 19 percent of users, and being made to create an account for 18 percent.

Weak trust signals and a required login each cost close to one in five checkouts. Clear security cues and guest checkout are direct levers.

Slow delivery drives abandonment for 20 percent of users, and a too-long or too-complicated checkout process for 17 percent.

Checkout friction and delivery speed are both fixable. Cutting steps and offering faster shipping options each recover a measurable slice of carts.

Baymard finds the average large e-commerce site can raise its conversion rate by 35.26 percent through better checkout design, based on ten years of checkout testing.

Most lost orders are recoverable with design changes, not more traffic. The uplift comes from removing the friction points the abandonment data names.

Website errors or crashes drive abandonment for 17 percent of users, and an unsatisfactory returns policy for 13 percent.

Bugs lose as many checkouts as a long form does. Monitoring checkout errors and stating the returns policy before payment are both cheap fixes.

U.S. retail sales reached $7,041.0 billion in 2022, up 8.0 percent from $6,519.8 billion in 2021.

This is the annual total retail base from the audited ARTS series. It complements the quarterly e-commerce share with a full-year denominator.

The Annual Retail Trade Survey reports e-commerce sales, inventories, gross margins, and operating expenses by industry, classified under the NAICS system.

ARTS is the audited annual series behind retail benchmarks. It lets an operator compare margins and inventory ratios against their own NAICS category.

The Census Bureau releases Annual Retail Trade Survey estimates about 15 months after the reference year.

Annual audited retail data lags by more than a year. For current conditions, the quarterly e-commerce release is the timelier official source.

U.S. retail e-commerce sales rose 3.8 percent from the first to the second quarter of 2026 after seasonal adjustment.

Even quarter to quarter, online sales kept climbing. The growth is steady rather than dependent on a single peak season.

The average US checkout shows 23.48 form elements by default, while Baymard's testing finds an ideal checkout can show as few as 12 to 14.

Most checkouts could cut 20 to 60 percent of the fields they show. Every element removed is one fewer reason for a buyer to stop.