Forecast Report

2021 Online Retail Forecast, US

COVID-19 Is Accelerating Online Penetration Across Many Categories

June 29th, 2021
Michael O'Grady, Principal Forecast Analyst
Michael O'Grady Principal Forecast Analyst
Sucharita Kodali, VP, Principal Analyst
Sucharita Kodali VP, Principal Analyst
With contributors:
Fiona Swerdlow , Ashley Villarreal

Summary

As the pandemic forced nonessential retail stores to close, US e-commerce grew 30% in 2020. Online food and drink grew more than twice as fast as US e-commerce overall. The popularity of click-and-collect and curbside pickup means 10% of food and drink purchases will occur online by 2024. Despite strong e-commerce growth, stores will continue to capture most retail sales by 2024, including 71% of all US retail sales and 64% of US non-food-and-drink sales. Retailers will focus on reconfiguring store networks, clarifying store online sales attribution, promoting COVID-safe retail practices, and improving online margins for food and drink. This report presents our US online retail forecast for 2020 to 2024.

Want to read the full report?

Contact us to become a client

This report is available for individual purchase ($1495).

Forrester helps business and technology leaders use customer obsession to accelerate growth. That means empowering you to put the customer at the center of everything you do: your leadership strategy, and operations. Becoming a customer-obsessed organization requires change — it requires being bold. We give business and technology leaders the confidence to put bold into action, shaping and guiding how to navigate today's unprecedented change in order to succeed.