Even as the U.S. starts to open up again, consumers are still shopping online, and Shopify, a leading commerce platform that lets merchants manage their online retail operations in-house, is well positioned to capture the growing online market as it continues to strike new partnerships.

Following a strong Q1 fueled by government stimulus, we have increased our forecast for US retail ecommerce sales in 2021. US ecommerce sales are expected to grow 17.9% this year (higher than the 13.7% predicted in January 2021) to reach $933.30 billion. That pushes ecommerce’s share of total US retail sales to 15.3%, up from 14.0% last year. Ecommerce is now on track to surpass 20% of total retail by 2024.

The 2020 holiday season’s unprecedented ecommerce surge helped total US retail spending remain positive, setting the tone for healthy outlook for 2021 holiday season growth.

In this Meet the Analyst Webinar, Zia Daniell Wigder, senior vice president of content at Insider Intelligence, broke down our 2021 US retail and ecommerce sales forecast, and covered the significant shifts marketers will need to take into consideration for their in-store and ecommerce strategies long term.

In a difficult year for retail sales overall, the US retail industry will remain the largest spender on digital advertising among all verticals, despite a huge deceleration in growth.

The 2020 US holiday season posted better-than-expected retail sales growth, as huge ecommerce gains added to a surprisingly positive performance for brick-and-mortar retail. The early outlook for the 2021 holiday season is solid despite major economic uncertainty ahead.

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

Online grocery sales will surpass $100 billion in the US this year, per our forecast, but traditional grocers may not see as much of that spending as the major ecommerce players are.

Following mixed effects of the pandemic in 2020, the US retail, consumer packaged goods (CPG), and entertainment industries are rebounding in 2021.

JPMorgan gives in: ‘Yes, you can have your crypto funds’: In a first from a big US bank, JPMorgan is offering some of its retail clients a choice of five funds. This could help the banking giant dissuade customers from moving funds to fintechs—and spur other incumbents to make similar rollouts.

We expect US social commerce sales to rise by 35.8% in 2021 to $36.62 billion. That’s only a slight deceleration in growth from 2020, when sales surged by 38.9% thanks to the pandemic-driven boom in ecommerce, increased social media consumption, and brands continuing to leverage these platforms to sell directly to consumers.