E-commerce Acceleration
It may not come as a surprise that e-commerce is up in 2020. Pandemic-related safety precautions and stay-at-home orders ha ve forced a lot of business online over the last few months . The newest numbers from the Ce nsus Bureau give a picture of just how extensive that shift has been in the U nited States . Take a look at this chart from the Census’ most recent quarterly report on e-commerce in the retail sector : Image Description: A chart titled ‘ Estimated Quarterly U.S. Retail E-commerce Sales as a Percent of Total Quarterly Retail Sales: 1 st Quarter 2011 to 2 nd Quarter 2020 ’ . The chart shows a steady rise i n the share of e-commerce sales from under five percent in 2011 to just under twelve percent in the first quarter of 2020, followed by a rapid spike to over fifteen percent in the second quarter of 2020. Look at that spike in the second quarter of 2020! E-commerce’s share of total retail sales steadily grew from under five percent in 2011 to