EXEC: New report predicts e-commerce growth to decline 70 percent by 2029

Is growth in global e-commerce becoming sluggish?

While the actual volume of e-commerce (in US dollars) is expected to double between 2023 and 2029, according to data compiled in an updated Statista Market Insights study, the annual growth rate is expected to slow significantly after peaking in 2025, according to a report by Stocklytics.com.

For the first time in its short history, the global e-commerce industry is expected cross 4 trillion dollars revenues in 2024, which is almost 15 percent more than in 2023. Although the market is expected To achieve double-digit growth, data collected by Statista and presented in the Stocklytics.com report suggests that this situation will change over the next five years.

Projected data from Statista report from May 2024. to introduce e-commerce growth is expected to increase by 14.6 percent in 2024, compared with a rate of 15.0 percent in January 2024 data. Growth is now set to peak in 2025 in 2025 at 16.4 percent, which is an increase compared to the previous forecast assuming growth at the level of 16.0 percent, however, in the perspective of 2029 the percentage growth rate will decline.

According to data provided by Stocklytics.com, the annual growth rate in the e-commerce sector is expected by 2029, which means a slowdown in growth to 4.6%, or a 69.3% drop compared to the forecast growth rate for 2024.

Annual growth rate to decline for five years in a row
Stocklytics.com acknowledged in its latest report that the global e-commerce landscape has changed significantly over the past five years. New technologies, including AI, voice search, AR and VR-enhanced shopping, and personalized voice search customer service, have taken online shopping to a new level, virtually blurring the lines between online and in-store shopping.

These changes have supposedly helped the e-commerce market attract more users and generate more revenue than ever before despite adversities and failuresincluding supply chain issues, inflation, rising digital advertising costs and changing consumer behavior.

The Statista Market Insights study shows how significant this increase was and how big it was is expected will be until 2029.

Revenue change from 2024 to 2029 (percentage)

According to the study, global e-commerce revenues grew by almost 90 percent between 2019 and 2024, from $2.18 trillion to $4.11 trillion. After COVID-19 sparked a boom in online shopping, the market’s revenues grew by an average of 25 percent per year before declining in 2022 and 2023. Statista predicts that 2024 and 2025 will see high revenue growth rates again; however, after a recovery in 2024 and a projected peak in 2025, the market is likely to see a significant slowdown, causing revenues to grow much less than in previous years.

According to Statista, global e-commerce revenue will grow by 11.5 percent in 2026, almost 5 percent less than in 2025, to reach $5.34 trillion. The trend of job cuts will continue in 2027, with the annual growth rate slowing to 9.2 percent. Although market revenue is forecast to grow to almost $6.5 billion by 2029, the annual growth rate is now expected to shrink to just 4.6 percent, which is just one-third of the growth rate forecasted for 2024. Stocklytics.com points out in its report that this represents a significant drop from Statista’s market forecast in January, when the projected annual growth rate for 2029 was around 7 percent.

Significant slowdown in growth across all major markets
The Statista study also shows that all regions of the world will experience a similar slowdown in e-commerce growth.

Asia, home to e-commerce giants Alibaba, AliExpress, JD.com and Rakuten, is expected to see its annual e-commerce growth rate decline from 15.6 percent to 4.5 percent over the next five years, the study said. However, Asia will remain the world’s largest e-commerce market, generating $3.15 trillion, or more than half of total market revenue, in 2029.

Statista data shows that revenue in the US market, where e-commerce giant Amazon operates, will rise to $2 trillion in 2029 from $1.33 trillion this year, but the annual growth rate will fall from 14.6 percent to 4.7 percent. Europe will come second with growth of 4.5% in 2029, up from 11.8% this year AND generating close $1.0 trillion revenues over the next five years.

Despite an apparent slowdown in revenue growth, the global e-commerce market is set to add more than a billion new users over the next five years, with the total number expected to grow from 2.5 billion in 2024 to 3.6 billion in 2029, according to Statista Market Insights.

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Statista data provided by Stocklytics.com

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