UK sees six-year leap in e-commerce, ahead of China and the US

Rob Clapp

An overview of e-commerce's share of retail sales between 2011 and 2020 across seven major markets.

E-commerce's share of retail sales reached new heights across key markets in 2020 as a result of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic and this looks sets to continue, according to a WARC Data analysis of monitoring by national statistical organisations.

In both the UK (28%) and China (25%), online sales accounted for one-quarter of all retail sales last year, both up from 18% in 2018. Indeed, UK penetration rose 8.4 percentage points in 2020 alone, equating to a six-year leap in just 12 months when previous growth rates are considered.

The EU excluding the UK also reached a new peak of...

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