ECDB

If you've ever ordered grocery online, you’ve already taken part in one of the biggest shifts in global e-commerce. Right now in 2026, grocery revenues increased by 14.9% year-over-year. The category thus poses an immense potential for development across markets, driven forward by several factors. What else is inside this week's edition: ⬇️ The middle tier of e-commerce retailers is shrinking as concentration grows 🛍️ Amazon's global strength is rooted in its domestic scale

Grocery is the fastest-growing force in e-commerce. 🚀 Grocery has long been the least digitized major retail category. Unlike fashion or electronics, it started from a very low online penetration base. Today, that gap is closing quickly. While electronics and fashion are still leading in size - at shares of 26.6% for fashion and 22.8% for electronics, grocery is catching up at a year-on-year growth rate of 14.9% in 2026. The reasons are diverse: 1️⃣ Fulfillment infrastructure works for grocery at scale. 2️⃣ Consumer behavior has shifted towards grocery post-pandemic. 3️⃣ Competition intensified to compound volume growth. 4️⃣ Inflation and assortment digitization made online grocery more competitive and rational for online shopping Meanwhile, more mature categories like fashion and electronics are stabilizing into steady but slower growth bands. 💻 🧴 One additional category worth watching closely is Care Products, including personal care, household care and health care. Like grocery, it benefits from high purchase frequency, strong substitution potential, and increasing digital-native discovery. The next wave of e-commerce is being driven by everyday essentials. This shift includes categories that were once considered too complex, too low-margin, or too operationally heavy to digitize effectively. Grocery is leading that transition, but it likely won’t be alone for long.

The middle of e-commerce is quietly disappearing. 😶🌫️ While headlines often focus on the “Amazon effect” or the rise of new brands, the more important story is happening in the middle tier of the market. As market concentration increases, mid-sized retailers are steadily losing ground. The largest e-commerce retailers are expanding at the expense of everyone else. 🔎 In 2023, there were 9,133 e-commerce retailers generating between US$10 million and US$1 billion in annual GMV. Together, they accounted for 16.1% of global e-commerce revenues. That share has been shrinking: 📉 By 2024, 9,029 mid-sized retailers made up 14.8% of global revenues ⬇️ One year later, the number stagnated at a slight improvement of 20 retailers but their share of global revenues declined further to 14.0% Meanwhile, the top end of the market continues to consolidate share, reinforcing a winner-takes-most dynamic. We’ve previously highlighted how the top 5 e-commerce players command a disproportionate share of global revenues. This data shows the other side of that equation: concentration doesn’t just build at the top, but it hollows out the middle.

Marketplaces are becoming the dominant channel for e-commerce revenue worldwide and nowhere is this shift more visible than in Asia. By 2025, 97.0% of e-commerce in the region is generated through marketplaces. Europe and Americas are far behind, but momentum is building there as well. You'll also find in this week's newsletter: 🔎 Over one quarter of retail revenues are generated through e-commerce 🛒 Online growth is fueled by higher purchase frequency and a rising number of digital shoppers

🛍️ More than a quarter of global retail revenues are generated by e-commerce in 2026. If you ever wondered whether there is still growth potential, the answer is yes. Since 2021, the online share of global retail has increased by 21.5%. But the real story sits beneath the average. Different categories are moving at very different speeds. 🥬 Grocery is the fastest growing category, up 46.6% since 2021. That sounds massive and it is. But context matters. In 2021, only 7.3% of global grocery revenue was online, so there was significant headroom to begin with. Even now, the category is still catching up, which means the runway ahead remains long. Electronics is the clear winner in this depiction. It both grew at a high rate (23.8%) and started from the highest point of a 36.9% online share. By 2026, 45.7% of all electronics revenues were generated through online channels. 💻 Nearly half of all global electronics revenue now happens online, making it the clearest example of what a digitally mature category looks like. Fashion follows closely behind with an online share of 38.8% in 2026. Growth has been more moderate at 9.9% since 2021, suggesting a category that is already relatively mature but still expanding steadily. 👕 Hobby & Leisure sits in the middle. It grew by 22.0% over the past five years, reaching an online share of 20.5% in 2026. Not as advanced as electronics or fashion, but clearly moving in the same direction. E-commerce growth is grounded in many stories. Some categories are still in acceleration mode, others are approaching maturity, and a few are already close to saturation.

🌐 In global e commerce, 83.4% of GMV is generated through marketplaces. How your brand should compare depends heavily on the region you operate in. The share of GMV generated on e-commerce marketplaces is growing everywhere, but the starting point looks very different. 🛒 Europe, where heritage brand traditionally operate D2C or through an own online store, is much lower than Asia. In Europe, 60.8% of e-commerce revenues are generated through third-party (3P) marketplaces, up from 56.2% in 2023. 🌎 The Americas tell a similar but more nuanced story. Many brands still rely on their own online stores, especially in North America. In contrast, South America leans strongly toward large marketplaces like MercadoLibre and Shopee, where most GMV is generated. 🚀 Asia is in a league of its own. Here, 97.0% of e-commerce GMV flows through third party marketplaces. This model dominates because major platforms played a central role in building the region’s e-commerce ecosystem, and that foundation still shapes how consumers shop today. One thing is clear. Third party e commerce is expanding across every region. Europe, the Americas, and Asia are all seeing a growing share of GMV driven by marketplaces. The real question is not whether to participate, but how to find the right balance for your market.

How do consumers buy fashion? In which countries does the category lead? Examining the AOV (average order value) and buying frequency, we identify where fashion takes the lead in e-commerce. What else you will find in this week's newsletter: 🛒 Amazon captures 59% of the online market in Japan 🌐 Cross-border e-commerce surges in Asia, is highest in the Americas

🥇 Amazon accounts for 58.5% of e commerce market revenues in Japan, yet Japan is not its most important domain. Amazon.com is the largest domain, at a product GMV of US$434 billion. Of the total GMV of amazon.com, 96.7% are generated in the United States. But in the US, Amazon accounts for 30.9% of market revenues. The difference comes down to market structure. 🚀 In Japan, Amazon faces a strong competitor in Rakuten, but the market is still relatively concentrated. This allows Amazon to capture a significantly larger share of total revenues. ↗️ Germany shows a similar pattern. Even with several large domestic players and solid e-commerce strategies, Amazon still leads the market, though not with the same level of dominance seen in Japan. In the United States, the market is far more fragmented. Walmart, eBay, Target, and a long tail of brands and marketplaces all compete for share. Amazon is massive in absolute terms, but its relative dominance is lower. 👉 Notable exceptions are South Korea and China, which have own ecosystems dominated by domestic powerhouses like Coupang or the various leaders in China like Alibaba, Pinduoduo, Douyin and the likes. Ultimately, market structure decides who wins share.

The ECDB Category Explorer is live! You can now drill down into the seventh sublayer of over 18,000 categories, taking your e-commerce research to the deepest granularity. This new tool helps you in various ways: 🔎 You can see in which category to grow next 🕵♀️ Catch category trends early, before the masses know about it 👉 Let go of markets that don’t serve you and expand into the ones that do How does the Category Explorer help you do that? For the 18,000 categories that you can now scour through (yes, let that sink in – 18,000!) you can examine five metrics for each subcategory: 1️⃣ Annual revenue (from 2017 to 2030) 2️⃣ Monthly Revenue 3️⃣ Number of Brands 4️⃣ Number of Products 5️⃣ Average Price In line with our international outlook at ECDB, you can filter for geographical ranges of your choosing or simply go with the worldwide view. The tool also lets you adjust for currencies. Explore all 18,000+ categories in more detail in a profile view, dive into detailed metrics, and tailor your insights by region or currency. 🚀 Your next growth move is just a few clicks away.

🛒 Fashion and Grocery are significant e-commerce categories, but their spending patterns are widely different. Examining the top 10 e-commerce countries worldwide, the reasons for the success of these categories are various. The size of the flag shows gross spending per buyer in a year. In fashion, the United States is ahead: Consumers buy fashion over 9 times a year and at the highest AOV (average order value) out of all the countries examined. 👕 ↘️ Germany tells a different story. Consumers spend around half of the annual spend than the US on fashion. This is not because people spend significantly less per order, but because they shop much less frequently, at around 5 times per year. ⬇️ France is even lower than that, owing to a little lower AOV at much lesser buying frequency. The grocery market is more uniform in terms of buying frequency, with only few outliers. 🚀 More markets are in the lead here, counting Germany, the US, China, France, the UK and South Korea. They have a relatively high buying frequency with over 6 times per year, up to 13 times in the UK and South Korea. At the same time, AOV is pretty consistent, revolving around a value of US$100. In both categories, the smaller flags show lower spending per buyer in a year, owing to either a lower buying frequency or AOV. But the sheer number of buyers can still raise overall market revenue (prime examples of this are Brazil, Russia, and India). Different levers lead to scale. Some markets grow through behavior, others through sheer volume.