At the turn of the century, only $0.90 of every $100 spent Americans spent on retail items was spent online. In 2023, that average was $15.30.

Now, nearly a quarter of the way into the 21st century, the internet has transformed industries in all sectors of the economy, and retail is no exception.

What percentage of shopping happens online?

In 2023, Americans spent $1.1 trillion on online retail, or a record 15.3% of the $7.2 trillion spent on retail overall. This is nearly a full percentage-point increase from 2022, when 14.4% of retail sales happened online.

Online retail has grown steadily as a share of overall retail throughout the 21st century, spiking by nearly four percentage points from 2019 to 2020 during the pandemic. The share stayed level until 2023.

How big is the retail industry?

As of 2023, the retail trade industry made up 6.4% of US gross domestic product (GDP), which measures the total economic output of all industries in the US.

This share has been relatively consistent since 1997 — retail has grown to no more than 6.9% of the GDP (in 1998) and shrunk to no less than 5.7% (from 2009–2012).

While retail has largely kept pace with changes in the US economy, other industries have surpassed it in share of GDP since the late 1990s. In 1997, retail was the fourth-largest major industry in the US after manufacturing, real estate, and state and local government. In 2023 it ranked seventh, having been eclipsed by professional services, healthcare and social assistance, and finance and insurance.

How big is the online retail industry?

Another way to measure an industry’s size is by how many people it employs. The retail industry employed 16.4 million people in 2023, up 7% from a 2010 low following the Great Recession.

But retail employment doesn’t always grow consistently: some sectors of the industry have been growing while others have shrunk. Employment with motor vehicles and part dealers rose 24%, dealers of building materials and supplies 23%, gas stations 20% and non-store retailers — which include a range of sales points from vending machines to online retailers — 18%. Other sectors, like electronics and appliances, have seen drops.

Since non-store retailers like ecommerce firms also tend to be more efficient than other retailers as measured by worker output — that is, they are capable of producing more with the same number of employees — it can also be helpful to measure the industry in terms of output rather than (or in addition to) employment.

The overall retail industry produced $7.2 trillion in sales in 2023, a 45% increase (after adjusting for inflation) since a recent low in 2009. Non-store retail was responsible for $1.4 trillion of that, or 19%. Since 2009, no subsector of retail has seen as much sales growth as non-store retailers: 220%. The next-highest sales growth was in motor vehicles, at 72%.

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Read data analyses written by the USAFacts team.

Page sources and methodology

All of the data on the page was sourced directly from government agencies. The analysis and final review was performed by USAFacts.

  • Federal Reserve Economic Data

    E-Commerce Retail Sales as a Percent of Total Sales (ECOMPCTSA)

  • Bureau of Economic Analysis

    Value added by Industry as a Percentage of Gross Domestic Product