Despite a challenging year for retail in 2020, we estimate that worldwide retail ecommerce sales posted a 27.6% growth rate for the year, with sales reaching well over $4 trillion. This represents a substantial uptick from our mid-pandemic assessment that global ecommerce would decelerate to 16.5% growth and demonstrates the remarkable extent to which consumers transitioned to ecommerce last year.

The 2020 US holiday season, set amid the backdrop of a pandemic-driven consumer economy, will see an unprecedented shift to ecommerce.

The pandemic accelerated payments industry digitization across the entire landscape, as merchants turned to ecommerce to keep doors open, consumers eschewed cash in favor of electronic and contactless payments, and payments technology providers rapidly developed and launched new solutions to keep up.

Brazil is Mercado Libre’s largest ecommerce market

With many retail stores temporarily closed during the pandemic, and more consumers turning online to buy goods, major social networks have taken steps to improve their ecommerce offerings.

One of the major themes to emerge from the pandemic has been the growing divide between the haves and have-nots. Some trends that have deepened the divide—such as the shift to ecommerce—are hardly new. But others will be short-lived trends that none of us could have predicted at the beginning of 2020. It remains to be seen when things will return to normal, but one thing is for certain: New habits formed in 2020 have altered the future of retail.

The coronavirus pandemic has dramatically altered the US retail and ecommerce landscape, with varying impacts in retail category growth.

The CPG industry will increase its investments in digital advertising this year as strong sales of essential goods and personal care products—particularly on ecommerce platforms—gave advertisers reasons to keep spending during the pandemic.

Prior to the pandemic, we expected search ad spending to grow by 14.4% this year as part of a trend of gradually slowing growth from 2018 through the end of our forecast period in 2024. When the pandemic upended those expectations, we revised our outlook in anticipation of a virtual halt to travel industry search spending. But as more information has come in throughout the summer and early fall about the pace of consumer ecommerce spending, we have again updated our estimates of search ad spending in 2020—this time, in a positive direction.

From midnight on March 23, the UK government enforced the closure of nonessential retail stores in the UK as part of strict lockdown measures. This shuttering was only lifted on June 15. During those intervening 12 weeks, UK consumers wanting to purchase anything other than groceries or medications could not do so in-store.

This report looks at the impact the coronavirus will have on total retail and ecommerce sales in Argentina, Brazil and Mexico, as well as its effect on consumer spending on essential vs. nonessential goods and services.

Physical retail has suffered hugely under the weight of the coronavirus. Ecommerce has benefited to the tune of a 14.7% rise in sales this year, and digital habits are forming that will last beyond the pandemic.

The coronavirus pandemic has been disastrous for the vast majority of Europe’s retailers. Digital retail has benefitted, though. In Germany, we expect retail ecommerce sales to rise 16.2% this year, and total $92.33 billion.

Coronavirus effects have radically altered the US retail and ecommerce landscape, with surprising changes in consumer behavior and category and retailer performance.

Ecommerce’s share of total retail in Canada is higher than we previously expected, as brick-and-mortar outlets are forced to shutter and online shopping becomes a necessity.

Retailers are bracing for a softer holiday season due to the pandemic. They will see, however, a major shift to ecommerce this holiday season.

Marketers will spend $17.37 billion on advertising on ecommerce sites and apps this year, according to eMarketer’s first-ever forecast of ecommerce channel ad spending. Ad spending on ecommerce properties will be up 38.8% from 2019—an acceleration of spending growth, thanks to the pandemic. By the end of this year, ecommerce channel advertising will represent 12.2% of US digital ad spend.

Global retail ecommerce sales will decelerate to a 16.5% growth rate in 2020. Even as consumers transitioned en masse to ecommerce during the pandemic, the drag caused by multiple recessions internationally has reduced the overall outlook.

eMarketer principal analyst Mark Dolliver, junior analyst Blake Droesch, principal analyst Jillian Ryan, and vice president of content studio at Insider Intelligence Paul Verna discuss the major digital pivot to reimagined events amid COVID-19. Then, the usual suspects talk about Twitter's fight against election misinformation, TikTok's potential rivals, untapped marketing to lower-income customers, ecommerce within YouTube, and how cats aren't as heartless as they seem.

The pandemic has accelerated ecommerce growth in the US this year, with online sales reaching a level not previously expected until 2022. In our Q3 US retail forecast, the top 10 retailers by ecommerce sales will tighten their grip on the retail market.

Over the past few months, retailers have experienced an ecommerce boost as a result of the pandemic and overall change in consumer shopping behavior.

eMarketer principal analysts at Insider Intelligence Debra Aho Williamson, Andrew Lipsman, Nicole Perrin, and Jillian Ryan discuss the biggest challenges facing marketers today, and how to tackle them. They then talk about Apple delaying its major privacy update, Snapchat running ads inside "Minis," ecommerce marketers' reliance on Facebook ads, and a new job title that came out of the pandemic.

From the onset of the pandemic, US consumers shifted to ecommerce for essential goods and personal care products, which has kept CPG digital ad spending afloat. We expect the industry to increase its digital ad spending 5.2% to $19.40 billion this year.