One of the most visible trends in the American economy — especially during the holiday season — has been the long and steady rise of online retail sales, or e-commerce. Currently, in 2025, e-commerce accounts for more than 16% of all retail sales in the U.S., and trends suggest it will continue to gain ground in future years.

E-commerce has been growing as an industry since the turn of the century. In 2000, e-commerce retail sales made up less than 1% of total retail activity in the U.S. Since then, this share has continued to increase steadily, with a rapid acceleration occurring in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, as can be seen below in Figure 1. Continue reading →