US retail sales growth will stabilize in 2022, but changes wrought by two years of the pandemic will drive growth in online automotive and grocery sales.

Across almost all product categories, US luxury shoppers are far more likely to make purchases in-store than online. Physical retail had the widest lead in the food and beverage category, followed by watches and jewelry. Digital got the upper hand in only fashion and travel, suggesting that for many tangible luxury goods, shoppers prefer to see and feel them before spending big bucks.

Amazon’s two fastest-growing ecommerce categories this year will be health, personal care, and beauty as well as food and beverage.

The pandemic led to unprecedented growth in US ecommerce sales. Even as sales growth returns to somewhat normal levels in 2021, total sales will far exceed our pre-pandemic estimates.

US food and beverage ecommerce sales will approach $80 billion in 2022, up 20.7% from nearly $65 billion last year. While the growth is impressive, it’s far slower than the 99.0% surge the category saw in 2020, when wary consumers pivoted to buying online at the onset of the pandemic.

US jewelry sales grew 27.5% in 2021 to reach $47.1 billion, making up 8.8% of the apparels and accessories category.