Part
01
of one
Part
01
I'd like to know year by year the total dollar amount of U.S. retail sales and the percentage of ecommerce retail sales vs brick and mortar for the years 2006 - 2016.
Hello! Thank you for your request for U.S. retail sales, for eCommerce and brick and mortar locations, from 2006-2016. I have researched the total retail sales for these years in USD (United States dollars) and the percentage of sales from eCommerce sites and brick and mortar locations respectively. The short answer is that, while the percentage of sales through eCommerce sites grew each year in this time frame, brick and mortar stores still account for the majority of retail sales. My findings are detailed in the attached spreadsheet.
METHODOLOGY
I started my search by looking for any available compiled, historical data on U.S. retail sales. I then did another specific search on U.S. eCommerce retail sales.
My main source, the U.S. Census Bureau, provided separate lines of detailed data in their Annual Retail Trade Report for "Total Retail and Food Services Sales" and "Total Retail Sales". As I wasn't sure which would be most beneficial, I included both data sets in separate columns in the attached spreadsheet. For this request, however, I used the "Total Retail Sales" column to calculate the percentage of total eCommerce sales.
The U.S. Census Bureau also provided eCommerce information for the years 2006-2015. I did an additional search to find end-of-year eCommerce data for 2016. Web, or eCommerce, sales were $394.86 billion in 2016. We will use this number for our 2016 calculation. I decided to include total eCommerce sales to the spreadsheet as well to show all the information used for my calculations. Retail sales are listed in trillions.
CALCULATIONS
I used the Annual Retail Trade reports provided by the U.S. Census Bureau to calculate what percentage of total U.S. retail sales were through eCommerce. I divided the total eCommerce sales by the total retail sales to find the percentage. For example:
2006 Total Retail Sales: $387,157,300,000,000
2006 Total eCommerce Sales: $85,945,000,000
Calculation: $$85,945,000,000/$387,157,300,000,000=0.022
0.022 x 100 = 2.2%
CONCLUSION
To wrap it up, I have included total retail sales in USD, percentage of eCommerce retail sales, and percentage of brick and mortar retail sales in the attached spreadsheet. Thank you for using Wonder! Please let us know if we can assist with additional research.