As early as March, pandemic shoppers rushed to purchase items online and as the country slowly reopens, shoppers are showing an even greater dependence on e-commerce, according to “Digital Commerce and the New Normal,” an Advantage Digital Commerce infographic.
In March and April 2020, COVID-19 triggered an 11 percentage point surge in U.S. e-commerce sales, reaching 27% of all retail sales at the end of April 2020. March 1 to March 25 online food sales increased 183% compared to the same period last year.
What’s more, forecasts for 2020 sales growth for select retail channels have grown significantly since the pandemic hit, with e-commerce sales expected to grow 22.1%, up from a projected 13.1% prior to COVID-19. Sales in supermarkets and neighborhood stores are now forecast to grow by 5.5%, up from a projected 1.8% earlier in the year.
Among the fastest-growing e-commerce categories are disposable gloves (670%), bread machines (652%), cough and cold (535%), soup (397%) and rice and grains (386%).
“Digital Commerce and the New Normal” compiles statistics from Advantage Sales’ Analytics, Insights & Intelligence; Apptopia; Bank of America; Coresight Research; Edge by Ascential; eMarketer; Instacart; Kantar; NetElixir; Numerator; ShawSpring Research; Stackline; Tech Crunch and U.S. Department of Commerce.
