This statistic shows retail e-commerce sales as a percent of global retail sales from 2015 to 2021. In 2017, e-retail sales accounted for 10.2 percent of all retail sales worldwide. This figure is expected to reach 17.5 percent in 2021.

Online shopping is one of the most popular online activities worldwide with global e-retail sales reaching 2.3 trillion U.S. dollars in 2017. With recent digital development exploding in the Asia Pacific region, it is no surprise that the fastest growing online retail markets are Indonesia and India, followed by Mexico and China. Digital retail development in these countries is strongly connected to the constantly improving online access, especially in mobile-first online communities that have long struggled with the traditional fixed broadband connections due to financial or infrastructure restrictions but enjoy the advantages of cheap mobile broadband connections.

The average order value of online shopping orders via smartphone and tablet devices still lags behind traditional online orders via desktop but global e-retailers have been catching up on mobile e-commerce sales. Amazon, Apple and JD.com are the leading global e-retailers based on m-commerce sales, with market leader Amazon generating close to 28 billion U.S. dollars in mobile retail sales in 2015 alone. Especially web-only online merchants in China have been successful in making the transition to mobile commerce powerhouses, which comes as a small surprise with the strong mobile internet penetration rate in the country. Online sales are set to account for up to a third of total retail sales in China in 2019.