After a shaky start to ecommerce in 2023, retail experts are confident the industry will grow in the long term, suggesting pandemic growth was not a fad.
Early 2023 was worrisome for some online retailers after an uncertain end to 2022. The Wall Street Journal reported that US retail sales fell 1.1% in December 2022.
Several factors shook the ecommerce industry.
- Rising inflation.
- The relaxing of covid rules changed customer habits.
- Logistics companies found themselves over-invested in infrastructure (as a result of the previous point).
- China remained closed as it battled high levels of covid (until January 8th).
Ecommerce Outlook Has Improved
Insider Intelligence has forecast that “US retail ecommerce sales growth will accelerate each year through 2027.”
Meanwhile, the National Retail Federation (NRF) also has a rather positive outlook, forecasting “Retail sales to grow between 4% and 6% this year.”
In an article by Digital Commerce 360, they explain that between 4% and 6% is above the pre-pandemic “average annual retail sales growth rate of 3.6%.”
This increase suggests that the growth of ecommerce during the pandemic wasn’t just a fad. Though it recently dropped in the short-term, in the long-term, it is still very much growing.
However, the pandemic certainly boosted online sales and acted as a learning curve for new online shoppers who could no longer shop in brick-and-mortar stores.
A lasting result of this has been that many new online shoppers got to experience the convenience of online shopping.