• by Richard Whitman , Columnist, 4 hours ago

GroupM has just released its first ecommerce forecast which details 2020’s growth and what to expect the next few years, including $10 trillion in retail ecommerce sales by 2027.

The forecast estimates that global retail ecommerce—including automotive sales but excluding food and delivery services to ensure consistency across markets—will amount to $3.9 trillion in 2020, up 25% from the prior year and about 17% of equivalent global retail sales. In 2021 that total will rise to an estimated $4.6 trillion, or a gain of nearly 18%.

In the U.S. next year ecommerce is expected to account for 16.2% of retail sales, per the GroupM report.  The analysis is solely focused on retail e-commerce and thus has omitted service-focused sectors, such as travel, finance or digital media.

Christian Juhl, GroupM’s Global CEO stated, “There’s a huge opportunity in e-commerce for brand building, tying clients’ online operations to their media activations across channels. The pandemic has accelerated that need and shown clients how valuable e-commerce really is for brand building.”

Added Juhl, “Since e-commerce strategy’s impact on brand building leads to stronger immediate performance, brands should have a particular interest in focusing on this space now and for the foreseeable future.”