At the turn of the century, online shopping was a rounding error in retail.
Twenty-five years later, roughly one in every six retail dollars in the U.S. is spent online.
The shape of that climb is one of the clearest long-run trends in modern commerce.
TL;DR
- The U.S. Census Bureau has tracked e-commerce as a share of retail since the fourth quarter of 1999.
- E-commerce reached 16.4% of U.S. retail in 2025, up from 11.9% just before the pandemic.
- The share rose steadily from 14.4% in 2022, gaining close to a percentage point per year.
ALSO READ: Is E-commerce Actually Killing Physical Stores? Here’s The Data
The long-run figures here come from the U.S. Census Bureau’s retail e-commerce series, tracked continuously since 1999.
The climb, in milestones
| wdt_ID | wdt_created_by | wdt_created_at | wdt_last_edited_by | wdt_last_edited_at | Year | U.S. e-commerce share of retail |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | emmanuel-ashemiriogwa | 07/08/2026 01:28 AM | emmanuel-ashemiriogwa | 07/08/2026 01:28 AM | Late 1999 | near zero |
| 2 | emmanuel-ashemiriogwa | 07/08/2026 01:28 AM | emmanuel-ashemiriogwa | 07/08/2026 01:28 AM | 2019 (pre-pandemic) | 11.90% |
| 3 | emmanuel-ashemiriogwa | 07/08/2026 01:28 AM | emmanuel-ashemiriogwa | 07/08/2026 01:28 AM | 2022 | 14.40% |
| 4 | emmanuel-ashemiriogwa | 07/08/2026 01:28 AM | emmanuel-ashemiriogwa | 07/08/2026 01:28 AM | 2024 | 16.10% |
| 5 | emmanuel-ashemiriogwa | 07/08/2026 01:28 AM | emmanuel-ashemiriogwa | 07/08/2026 01:28 AM | 2025 | 16.40% |
The share climbed from 11.9% just before the pandemic to 16.4% in 2025, a 4.5-percentage-point structural shift in five years.
The pandemic pulled that growth forward, compressing what might have taken years into months, and the higher level largely held afterward.
Why the trend matters more than any single year
A single quarter’s number bounces around with the holidays and the economy.
The multi-decade trend is what tells the story, and it is unambiguous: a steady, grinding rise from nothing to one-sixth of retail.
The interesting recent wrinkle is that the climb has slowed.
Moving from a steadily rising share toward a plateau is a fundamentally different environment for retailers than the explosive growth of the early 2020s.
ALSO READ: U.S. Accounts for 21.6% of All TikTok Spending Globally
ELI5
Twenty-five years ago, almost nobody shopped online.
Bit by bit, and then very fast during the pandemic, it grew to about one in every six dollars of shopping in the U.S. The growth has now started to slow down.
Sources
