Online retail is no longer the upstart channel. Global retail e-commerce sales are forecast to reach $6.88 trillion in 2026, up 7.2% on the year, or 21.1% of all retail sales. That share is expected to climb to 22.5% by 2028.
A growing market doesn’t mean your store is growing. Someone is taking that share, and the retailers doing it are mostly fixing unglamorous problems. Here is where the data says to look.
The checkout is where the money leaks
Start with an uncomfortable number. Across 50 studies, the average documented cart abandonment rate is about 70%. Part of that is harmless, since Baymard found 43% of US abandoners said they were just browsing. But the avoidable part is stubborn. About 39% of abandoners left because extra costs such as shipping, tax or fees were too high. Cart Abandonment Rates For 2026: The Numbers, The Reasons, And What Ecommerce Brands Should Do Next +2
A Bizrate survey tells a similar story: 42% of shoppers say they frequently abandon a cart over unexpected costs, and free shipping ranks as their top priority at 57%. DHL’s 2026 study of 29,000 shoppers across 29 countries found that seven in ten say they’ll abandon a cart when the delivery or returns options they want are missing. And 88% of the businesses surveyed say free delivery and returns improve sales. Ecommerce Conversion Optimization in 2026: Why Free Shipping, Returns, and Pricing Transparency Matter +2
Our view: before buying more traffic, show the full price early and publish a plain-language returns policy. Fixing a leaky checkout is cheaper than renting new visitors.
Mobile is the store, not a smaller copy of it
Mobile accounts for roughly 60% of global e-commerce sales in 2026, up from 43% in 2018. Yet one benchmark puts mobile abandonment above 80%, against about 66% on desktop. If your team designs on a large monitor and tests on a flagship phone, you’re probably missing what most customers see.
AI is turning into a storefront you don’t control
Shoppers increasingly start with an assistant, not a search box. An Adobe survey of 5,000-plus US consumers put AI shopping usage at 39% in March 2026, and McKinsey projects $750 billion of consumer spend will flow through AI-powered search by 2028.
The catch is visibility. Adobe found roughly a third of retailers’ product page content is unreadable to large language models. If an assistant can’t parse your listing, it can’t recommend you.
Consumers are also cautious. A July 2026 Gartner survey found they want AI to help research and compare, but not to make the purchase. In a separate study, 67% of US consumers were interested in trying agentic shopping tools, though many wanted human approval before anything was bought. Retailers should treat product data (clean specs, accurate stock, clear photos) as marketing, because for AI shoppers it is.
Social commerce: real, but check the numbers
One prediction is that social commerce sales will exceed $1.17 trillion globally by 2026, about 17 per cent of total online retail, and another is that the market will grow to $2.11 trillion. The difference indicates there is room to measure the market size. Don’t look at the big headline number. Find one site where your prospects hang out and test for 90 days.
Competing with giants
Amazon holds about 40% of US retail e-commerce. Matching it on price and range is a losing plan. Smaller retailers win on what a marketplace can’t easily fake: deep expertise in a niche, faster answers from real people, and a reason for customers to come back.
A short list for next quarter
- Show the total cost on the product page, not at the last step.
- Buy something from your own store on a mid-range phone. Time it.
- Clean your product data so humans and AI can both read it.
- Publish delivery dates and a returns policy a child could follow.
- Test one social channel for 90 days before committing budget.
The bottom line
The retailers who compete in this market won’t be the ones with the flashiest technology. They’ll be the ones who remove friction customers have complained about for years, and who are easy for both people and machines to find. Growth is there for the taking, but only if the basics work first.