by Wolf Richter
Wolf Street
The Pandemic Economy Massively Changed How Americans Buy Stuff.
Ecommerce retail sales jumped 44% in the second quarter 2020, compared to a year earlier, to $201 billion, not seasonally adjusted, according to the Commerce Department today. On a seasonally adjusted basis, ecommerce sales hit $211 billion. In dollar terms, the jump of $62 billion compared to Q2 last year was the largest ever in the data going back to 2001.
This confirms what retailers have been saying for months: Nearly everything related to ecommerce was hot, and even some grocery sales, long resistant to ecommerce started shifting to ecommerce during the Pandemic Economy. Ecommerce sales in Q2, both seasonally adjusted (red) and not seasonally adjusted (navy), blew past the holiday selling season (Q4), which has never happened before: