Ecommerce has been growing persistently for the past few years. It took over 19 percent share of global retail sales in 2020 from 16 percent in 2019. With the advent of the pandemic, this growth has accelerated. According to a report by McKinsey, the pace of economic growth has increased by two to five times after the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic.
While the e-commerce transactions are increasing, their distribution across the regions is different. Asia-Pacific has the major share in these transactions, which amounted to 62 percent of the total retail transactions in 2020 according to eMarketer’s 2020 Global E-Commerce Report. North America and Western Europe take up the rest of these transactions. Latin America, Africa, and the Middle East constitute 3 percent of the global online trade collectively.
Global e-commerce sales are projected to stand at $4.921 trillion in 2021. China remained 2020’s biggest e-commerce market with $1,343.5 billion in sales during the said year. It is expected to hold this position by 2025 with its revenue projected to reach $1,996 billion, marking a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 8.2 percent. Not only that the Chinese market is the biggest in value, but it also has the largest growth rate in the three major markets. The US market generated revenues worth $537.7 billion in 2020. With a CAGR of 6.1 percent, its revenues are projected to exceed $723.6 billion in 2025. As for Europe, its revenues stood at $460.5 billion in 2020. It is projected to undergo a growth rate of 7.3 percent and generate $655.6 billion in revenues by 2025.
Fashion remains the e-commerce market’s largest segment and is expected to remain so in 2021 with an expected market volume of $4,094 million. However, the patterns of online shopping are changing over time. 2020 marked a shift from the shopping of occasional purchases like luxury items to essentials like groceries and food. China witnessed a 32.7 percent increase in its online food sales in the first quarter of 2020. 40 percent of Southeast Asia’s online consumers have been spending more on groceries (both fresh and package) and four-fifth of these consumers maintain that they will continue these transactions. While the e-commerce industry is projected to grow, there are certain challenges as well. Major marketplaces like Amazon are developing rapidly, but small retailers are struggling to create their brand via unique selling proposition (USP). Store loyalty is declining and the cart abandonment rate has increased from 69 percent to 75 percent. However, brand engagement can be increased through loyalty programs, community building, and a smooth desktop and mobile user experience.
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Most Valuable E-Commerce Companies in the World
15. Pinterest, Inc. (NYSE:PINS)
Pinterest (NYSE: PINS) is an online idea and product discovery platform with a newly directed focus on e-commerce. Its e-commerce features include the shop option in boards, pins, search, and the shopping list option. Headquartered in San Francisco, it has 459 million global monthly users that are growing every year. 2020 saw a 37 percent growth in its userbase mainly because of its new e-commerce features that expand over to France, Germany, Canada, and Australia. Its product inventory has increased with catalog uploads grown by 50 percent.
14. eBay Inc. (NASDAQ:EBAY)
eBay (NASDAQ: EBAY) has reported a GMV of $100.00 billion in 2020. Based in San Jose, California, its operations include listing fees from 1.5 billion live listings, revenue-sharing with service providers, advertising, and managed payments.
eBay (NASDAQ: EBAY) recorded total revenue of $10.271 billion in 2020. It operates in 190 countries while connecting 159 million buyers and 19 million sellers. The company generates 55 percent of its GMV from global markets and 45 percent from the US market.
13. Coupang, Inc. (NYSE:CPNG)
Coupang (NYSE: CPNG) is a Seoul-based e-commerce company with a GMV of $20.2 billion. Its operations include delivery of general merchandise including groceries, Coupang Eats that delivers prepared foods, and Coupang Play, which is a video streaming service. The company has more than 100 independent distribution centers. Its general merchandise includes apparel, footwear, electronics, food products, electronics, sporting goods, nutritional supplements, and others. It operates in Los Angeles, Beijing, Seattle, Singapore, Silicon Valley, Shanghai, Tokyo, and Taipei.
12. DoorDash, Inc. (NYSE:DASH)
DoorDash (NYSE: DASH) is a San Francisco-based logistics platform with a focus on e-commerce. It connects consumers, merchants, and dashers in 4000 cities of the US. It has extended its operations in Canada and Australia and Japan. The company’s operations include DoorDash marketplace that facilitates merchants, DoorDash Drive—a logistics service, and DoorDash Storefront that helps the merchants to provide on-demand e-commerce access to consumers. The company was earlier known as Palo Alto Delivery Inc. and became DoorDash in 2015.
11. MercadoLibre, Inc. (NASDAQ:MELI)
Mercado Libre (NASDAQ: MELI) is the largest e-commerce and payments service company in Latin America. Headquartered in Buenos Aires, it comprises a commerce segment that contributed 64 percent to the net revenue in 2020 and a fintech segment that represented 36 percent of the net revenue. The commerce segment includes online marketplaces, MercadoClics: a display and search advertising service, Mercado Shops: online store-management services, and Mercado Envios: third-party logistics solutions. Its fintech segment includes Mercado Pago: a payment-processing platform, and Mercado Fondo that entails a mobile wallet platform, asset management offerings, and credit services for sellers and buyers.
10. Target Corporation (NYSE:TGT)
Target Corporation (NYSE: TGT) is a general merchandise retailer based in Minneapolis. It has 1914 stores across the 50 states of the US and the District of Columbia. It covers multiple product categories, such as food and beverage (contributes 20 percent to sales), beauty and household essentials (contributes 26 percent to sales), home furnishings and décor (20 percent of the sales as of 2020), and apparel and accessories (16 percent of the sales in 2020). It has extensive ecommerce coverage, as 18 percent of its sales come from the digital channels. The company operates as a single segment.
9. JD.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:JD)
JD.com (NASDAQ: JD) is a Beijing-based e-commerce company with operations in over 200 countries and regions including South Korea, Japan, the US, and Southeast Asia. The company operates in various sectors including apparel, electronics, home furnishing, home appliances, fresh food, and others. Being the only e-commerce company to provide warehousing, it has 1200 warehouses including small-to-medium-sized warehousing, cross-border, oversized warehousing, and others.
JD.com (NASDAQ: JD) is China’s largest e-commerce company by revenue, which was recorded as $114.3 billion in 2020.
8. Pinduoduo Inc. (NASDAQ:PDD)
Pinduoduo Inc. (NASDAQ GS: PDD) is a Shanghai-based agriculture and e-commerce company. It is the largest agriculture e-commerce company in China. This mobile-only platform links agricultural producers with consumers within China. Its business operations include online marketing services (constitutes 80.6 percent of the revenue), transaction services (makes up 9.72% of the revenue), and merchandise sales (comprises 9.67% of the revenue).
In 2020, Pinduoduo Inc. (NASDAQ GS: PDD) recorded total revenue worth $9.12 billion and $255.6 billion worth of gross merchandise value (GMV). Its number of active buyers reached 788 million while active merchants on the platform were 586 thousand. Its total orders in 2020 remained 38.3 billion.
7. Sea Limited (NYSE:SE)
Sea Ltd. (NYSE: SE) is a Singapore-based internet company with operations in Asia, Latin America, and several other regions. It has three segments including Garena, Shopee and Sea Money. Garena provides PC and mobile online games, access to entertainment content, and eSports services. Shopee is a mobile-centric e-commerce platform that provides logistics infrastructure, integrated payment, and seller services. Sea money is a financial service platform for individuals and businesses. It covers mobile wallet and payment services—AirPay, Spay Later, ShopeePay, and payment processing services.
6. Shopify Inc. (NYSE:SHOP)
Shopify Inc. (NYSE: SHOP) is an Ottawa-based e-commerce company with operations in over 175 countries. It helps small and mid-sized businesses. Currently, 1.7 million businesses are working through Shopify Inc. (NYSE: SHOP). The company operates in two major segments, which include subscription solutions and merchant solutions. Subscription solutions is the major segment that enables e-commerce merchants to conduct their business on various platforms. It garnered 28 percent of the total revenue in 2020. The merchant solutions segment includes products that facilitate e-commerce like shipping and payment. This segment comprised over 71 percent of the revenue in the said year.
5. Prosus N.V. (XAMS:PRX.AS)
Prosus N.V. (AEX: PRX) is an Amsterdam-based company, which is a global consumer internet group and technology investor. The group operates in several sectors including classifieds, payments and fintech, food delivery, travel, education, social, health, and internet platforms. Its enterprises extend across Africa, the Americas, Central and Eastern Europe, and Asia.
Photo by Austin Distel on Unsplash
4. The Home Depot, Inc. (NYSE:HD)
The Home Depot (NYSE: HD) is the largest home improvement products retailer across the globe. It also executes e-commerce operations. Headquartered in Atlanta, it operates 2300 warehouse-format stores in the US, Mexico, and Canada. It offers over 30,000 in-store products and 1 million online including building materials, lawn and garden products, home improvement products, décor products, repair and operation products, facilities maintenance, and several services like tool and equipment rentals and installations.
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3. Walmart Inc. (NYSE:WMT)
Walmart Inc. (NYSE: WMT) is a Bentonville-based retailer. It operates in retail and wholesale and runs supermarkets, supercenters, warehouse clubs, hypermarkets, discount stores, and cash and carry stores. The company has over 10,500 stores in 24 countries and e-commerce websites under 48 banners. It has 6100+ pickup and delivery locations across the globe. The operations comprise three reportable segments including Walmart US, Walmart International, and Sam’s Club.
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2. Alibaba Group Holding Limited (NYSE:BABA)
Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. (NYSE: BABA) is the world’s largest e-commerce company by gross merchandise volume (GMV), which remains $1.2 trillion in 2021. Headquartered in Hangzhou, China, the company operates in over 190 countries and regions. It deals in both retail and wholesale with coverage of more than 40 e-commerce categories including machinery, apparel, and consumer apparel. Its major business segments include core commerce, digital media and entertainment, cloud computing, and others.
Alibaba (NYSE: BABA) recorded $78.39 billion worth of revenue in 2020. Its number of annual active customers stands at 1.18 billion as of June 2021.
Pieter Beens / Shutterstock.com
1. Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN)
Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ GS: AMZN) is a Seattle-based e-commerce company with operations extending to over 100 countries. It is an online retailer with a vast coverage of major retail categories and a service provider in entertainment, devices, cloud computing, and API segments.
Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ GS: AMZN) is America’s largest e-commerce company with its net sales amounting to $386 billion in 2020. The company recorded $263.16 billion in global retail sales and $482 billion in gross merchandise volume (GMV) in the said year. Its Amazon Prime service has over 200 million members across the globe while the small and medium enterprise (SME) sellers constitute 1.9 million of the store’s seller base and make 60 percent of its retail sales.
Photo by Sunrise King on Unsplash
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