Online retail sales surpassed $1 trillion in 2022

Online retail sales surpassed $1 trillion in 2022 for the first time in the US, indicating a 21% increase in spend year-over-year (YoY). Mobile commerce accounted for 40% of online retail spend.

“At the beginning of the pandemic in 2020, digital commerce was at $705.4 billion. A year later, it hit $904.3 billion, and this year we’re over $1 trillion. That level of growth previously took four years to achieve. Consumers are clearly doubling down on what works best for them – seamless, convenient, online purchasing across many different verticals and product types,” said Ian Essling, Senior Director of Survey Insights, Comscore.

With the fourth quarter of 2022 being the biggest spending quarter of the year online retail spending during the holiday season (November & December 2022) broke $230 billion and grew by 20% YoY. Online grocery and apparel were the top spending categories with $219 billion spent on ‘Grocery, Baby, Pet’ items, $175 billion on ‘Apparel and Accessories’ and $117 billion on ‘Computers and Peripherals’. The top growing digital commerce categories YoY were ‘Event Tickets’ (75%), ‘Digital Content’ (60%) and ‘Apparel and Accessories’ (37%).