How is E-Commerce Share of US Retail constructed?
Published by Deepstory Research as the methodology attached to E-Commerce Share of US Retail. Scope and source attribution are bounded by that Evidence Brief.
Procedure and scope
Figures are US Census Bureau quarterly retail e-commerce estimates, expressed as a percentage of total retail sales. Census e-commerce excludes travel, ticketing and financial services, so the number is lower than "online consumer spending" measures that include them. Quarters are compared like-for-like (Q1 to Q1) to avoid the large Q4 holiday seasonality in the unadjusted series. CAVEAT: Q1 2022 through Q1 2025 are published by Census but were not retrieved in this run, so the line has a gap rather than an interpolation. It will be filled on the next refresh. Re-verified 2026-08-10.
Known failure modes and limits
- Category-level penetration, which varies enormously.
- Marketplace versus first-party split.
- Profitability of online versus in-store sales.