Lit on Fire by Covid, E-Commerce Will Hit $20 Trillion Globally by 2026, RBR Says

It is generally accepted that the pandemic energized online commerce, but now research is starting to emerge showing just how extensive that effect has been. “Global Payment Cards Data and Forecasts to 2026,” a report released Wednesday by the London-based research firm RBR, indicates e-commerce card spending came to $7.7 trillion worldwide in 2020, up by about one-third over the 2019 total.

Online buying from the Americas region alone totaled $3.4 trillion in 2020, up 48%, to account for 44% of the worldwide volume, the report indicates. Another big contributor was the Asia-Pacific region, with $2.9 trillion in online spending, a 25% jump and enough to claim a 37% share.

But the swelling volumes of e-commerce traffic also betoken more online fraud. A nearly simultaneous study released by the United Kingdom-based firm Juniper Research forecasts fraud losses from online commerce will total $343 billion between 2023 and 2027. Putting that figure in perspective, the firm says these losses would be equal to 350% of Apple Inc.’s net income in 2021.

It’s well-known that lockdowns and business closings drove consumers to their computers and phones to shop for essentials, but shoppers also bought larger-ticket items than usual as they shunned the stores where they customarily had purchased such goods. That helped to drive up e-commerce volumes, the report says, adding that the effect came in spite of the fact that average transaction values online had been dropping in the years leading up to the coronavirus outbreak.

But the move to bigger tickets will be short-lived, RBR says. “This can be seen as something of an anomaly, and the average value of an e-commerce card payment will fall again over the next few years as consumers shop for lower-value goods and services online,” the firm adds in a release announcing its report.

Still, e-commerce volume overall will continue its robust climb, bolstered by the many new users who flocked to online shopping sites after the Covid outbreak, RBR forecasts. The firm estimates worldwide volume will reach $11 trillion this year and $13 trillion in 2023, with spend reaching fully $20 trillion in 2026.

“While e-commerce spending with cards has been on the rise for several years, Covid-19 restrictions encouraged consumers around the world to shop online even more. This trend is set to continue, with annual spending on payment cards growing at an average of 18% between 2020 and 2026,” says Daniel Dawson, who led RBR’s study, in a statement.