The retail ecommerce ecosystem in China is extremely diverse. While Alibaba and JD.com are the clear sales leaders, a handful of other players are holding their own, sometimes by carving out a niche market, be it Suning in consumer electronics or Mogujie in women’s apparel.

The global retail market will reach $25.038 trillion in 2019, an increase of 4.5% and a slight acceleration in growth vs. the prior year, per our estimates. At the same time, it represents a marked decline from the five years preceding that, when global retail sales grew at rates between 5.7% and 7.5% each year.

Growth of retail sales in China is declining, due to economic and geopolitical challenges, and will not overtake the US until 2021. But retail ecommerce has continued to flourish in some surprising ways under these current circumstances.

The global ecommerce market will rise more than 20% in 2019, despite mounting economic uncertainty and declining consumer spending growth around the world.

This report provides a regional and country-by-country analysis for retail ecommerce and mcommerce sales in Latin America, with breakouts for Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Mexico. It also examines emerging trends and key drivers fueling regional market movements.

Adults in China spend more time on digital than they do with any other media. Moreover, time spent on digital will continue to grow at a rapid pace, encroaching on time spent with traditional media.

The reports in this collection look at time spent with media in the US, Canada, the UK, France, Germany, China, Japan, South Korea and India. Two other reports take a close look at time spent with mobile and social in the US.

In April, Wayfair celebrated its second annual Way Day, a “holiday” dedicated to better-than-Black-Friday deals. The retailer saw double-digit sales growth over the first Way Day, as well as an increased number of orders and unique customers, according to an April 2019 report from Edison Trends. Better timing, an extended sales period and greater consumer offerings helped the retailer achieve these metrics.

Digital will account for 50.1% of total media ad spending in 2019, reaching the halfway mark for the first time.

This year, we expect China’s total retail ecommerce sales will grow more than 30%, reaching nearly $2 trillion—the highest-grossing retail ecommerce market worldwide, according to our latest forecast. Behind China, the US retail ecommerce market will reach $600.63 billion in sales, growing nearly 15% year over year.

Despite a faltering economy and subdued growth across traditional media, total media ad spend in China will maintain strong growth on the back of increases in digital and mobile, where the top digital publishers will maintain their dominance.

In 2019, digital will account for 50.1% of total media ad spending worldwide thanks to strong growth from major digital ad sellers like Google, Facebook, Alibaba and Amazon. Traditional channels will remain important, however, as advertisers begin to think more holistically about their advertising and marketing budgets.

The 2018 holiday season brought big rises in digital sales in Western Europe. The online grocery sector also experienced growth last year. Meanwhile, Amazon and Alibaba have both set their sights on major gains in the region.

Amazon and Alibaba continue to expand into Western Europe—Amazon with hopes of capturing a greater European consumer base, and Alibaba selling luxury European goods to its tens of millions of consumers in China.

Unlike Alibaba or JD.com, Pinduoduo relies on its users to leverage their social networks to drive conversions. The more friends and family a shopper can get to buy a product, the lower the price drops for everyone in the group.

State media network China Central Television (CCTV) is the main purveyor of sports programming in China, but OTT players, including Alibaba, Tencent and Baidu, have disrupted the ecosystem by securing streaming rights to major sports properties.

China is poised to become the world’s top retail market in 2019, surpassing the US by more than $100 billion, according to eMarketer’s latest worldwide retail and ecommerce forecast.

In the past few years, some key ecommerce players—including Amazon, China’s Alibaba, and eBay—have rolled out visual search tools that allow users to submit images as queries instead of text.

Smaller ad players in China are nipping at the heels of Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent (BAT) as programmatic ad spending grows faster than expected. According to eMarketer’s latest programmatic ad forecast for China, category spending will increase more than 33% to ¥208.55 billion ($30.86 billion) in 2019.

How does the average person in China use digital? In the latest episode of "Behind the Numbers," eMarketer's Man-Chung Cheung and Shelleen Shum dig into data about internet use, mobile, time spent with media and more.