U.S. annual desktop e-commerce sales 2002-2014
Online retail Online retail in the United States is a strong sector of the U.S. e-commerce market with constantly growing sales. With an annual average compound growth rate of 13.47 percent, e-commerce sales in the United States are close to reaching several hundred billion dollars, up from 117 billion U.S. dollars over a decade ago in 2004. E-commerce sales are usually divided into the business-to-consumer segments of online travel and online retail sales with the latter accounting for the majority of U.S. e-commerce revenue.
The prevalence of e-commerce sales has lead to changes and competition in pricing as consumers are now able to gather information about the best deals. Online shopping has also lead to showrooming where customers check out a product in-store and then shop for a cheaper price online. Many brick and mortar stores have subsequently adopted an online price-matching strategy and furthermore encourage consumers to shop at the stores’ retail sites instead of e-commerce companies such as Amazon.