Ecommerce Industry is Slowing Down; Annual Growth Rate to Drop 3x to 4.6% in 2029

For the first time in its history, the global ecommerce industry is expected to gross over $4 trillion in revenue, nearly 15% more than in 2023. Although the convenience of buying products on the go continues to drive double-digit market growth, that will change in the next five years.

According to data presented by Stocklytics.com, the annual growth rate in the ecommerce landscape is expected to drop three times to 4.6% in 2029.

Annual Growth Rate to Drop for Five Years in a Row

The global ecommerce landscape has undergone significant changes over the past five years. New technologies, including AI, voice search, AR and VR-enhanced shopping, and personalized customer service voice search, have taken the online shopping experience to a whole new level, practically erasing the differences between buying online and going into the brick-and-mortar store.

These changes have helped the ecommerce market to draw more users and gross more revenue than ever despite the headwinds and setbacks, like supply chain issues, inflation, rising digital advertising costs, and changing consumer behavior. The Statista Market Insights survey shows just how significant that growth was.

Between 2019 and 2024, global ecommerce revenues have spiked by almost 90%, rising from $2.18 trillion to $4.11 trillion. After COVID-19 triggered a boom in online shopping, the market revenue grew by an average of 25% per year before slumping in 2022 and 2023. Statista expects 2024 and 2025 to see high revenue growth rates again, rising by 14.6% and 16.4% year-over-year, respectively. However, after this recovery, the entire market will face a considerable slowdown, causing its revenue to grow much less than in previous years.

According to Statista, the global ecommerce revenue will increase by 11.5% in 2026, almost 5% less than the year before, and hit $5.34 trillion. The downsizing trend will continue in 2027, with the annual growth rate falling to 9.2%. Although the market revenue is forecasted to increase to almost $6.5 billion by 2029, the annual growth rate will drop to only 4.6%, just one-third of the growth projected for this year. Furthermore, this represents a significant decline compared to Statista market projections from January, when the annual growth rate for 2029 stood at roughly 7%.

Significant Growth Slowdown Across All Major Markets

The Statista survey also showed that all regions would see a similar ecommerce growth slowdown. Asia, home to e-commerce giants Alibaba, AliExpress, JD.com, and Rakuten, will see its annual growth rate in the ecommerce segment drop from 15.6% to 4.5% in the next five years. However, Asia will remain the world`s largest ecommerce market, generating $3.15 trillion or more than half of total market revenue in 2029.

Statistics show the revenue in the US market, home to ecommerce giant Amazon, will jump to $2 trillion in 2029, up from $1.33 trillion this year, but the annual growth rate will drop from 14.6% to 4.7%. Europe follows with a 4.5% growth in 2029, compared to 11.8% this year, and close to one trillion dollars in revenue in the next five years.

Despite the apparent revenue growth slowdown, the global ecommerce market will still add more than one billion new users in the next five years, with their total number rising from 2.5 billion in 2024 to 3.6 billion in 2029.