eCommerce Shares in Top Product Categories

The corona effect helped certain product categories gain traction in online trade which were not able to fully set foot in eCommerce before, while others had already been selling outstandingly well over the internet for years. It is especially the groceries sector which experienced unprecedented online demand during lockdowns and generally insecure pandemic times. The completely disrupted economic and social conditions resulted in fundamental changes in consumer behavior, different online grocery business models had their golden hours, and investments in online grocery delivery surged. But was the corona boost big enough to help the food and beverages categories catch up with other product categories in terms of eCommerce shares? And how high is the share that eCommerce revenues contribute to overall global revenues in the most relevant consumer product categories? Today’s infographic from the brand-new ecommerceDB Category Reports series1 gives an insightful overview:

Consumer electronics is still an eCommerce heavyweight in comparison with other product categories. Out of a selection of product categories of common consumer goods, consumer electronics has the highest online share, with 43% of total global revenue in the category being generated through online sales in 2021, based on Statista Digital Market Outlook data. But there are several other categories in which more than one third of global revenues are generated online, including the pioneering eCommerce category fashion (34%), but for example also personal care (34%), a category which is often mentioned together with groceries as being especially offline-driven. It might also be surprising that the online revenue share of furniture is above the average of 26% of the selected categories shown in this comparison, as the look-and-feel experience is especially important when it comes to home furniture. The three categories which reach below-average online shares are far off. With 12%, the online share in the hobby & stationery category is less than half as high as in the furniture category. With 6% respectively 3%, beverages and food still have very low online shares in total global revenue compared to the other categories, despite the corona boost described above. Compared to 2019, when food still had an online revenue share of under 2%, it is still a significant increase. And the market is in motion – there are promising trends in sight.

1: You want to dive deeper into the individual categories? Check out the recently released ecommerceDB Category Reports series. The brand-new reports focus on one relevant product category each, featuring all relevant KPIs based on exclusive Statista Digital Market Outlook, Statista Global Consumer Survey, and ecommerceDB data. This includes analyses of global and local markets, online shopper behavior and other consumer insights in the respective product categories, top brands including rankings and brand profiles, and more.