Online shopping is confusing for bananas

The amount we buy online affects the whole economy, but right now there is lots of question marks.

VideoCreditCredit...By Vince Ibay and Jessica Miller< /figure>

The mantra of 2022 really should be: nobody knows.

It's amazing how we understand little how the pandemic has changed our lives and our country. It's unclear if the US economy is hot or not, or if big cities like New York will be scarred forever. We don't know if women's careers have been permanently damaged or if our mental health will be good.

The future of our online shopping habits is another unknown.

The government recently revealed that the US e-commerce boom during the pandemic is even bigger than it previously believed. But in 2021, this trend has started to recede a bit. Physical stores beat e-commerce last year, and they're continuing to do so this year. The trajectory of internet shopping has gone from bananas to confusing bananas.

Now business executives, retail analysts and economists are trying to understand how quickly we could transition to a future in which online shopping is the primary way to shop. Will internet shopping return to something like the fairly flat growth rate of the decade before 2020? Or has the pandemic permanently turbocharged our e-commerce lives?

Don't expect a definitive answer for a long time, but the next few weeks of clues... 'Amazon, Walmart, and government sales data will give us a better idea.

It's not just a corny debate. Our collective buying behavior influences trillion-dollar companies, millions of retail jobs, and the health of the American economy. Uncertainty over the direction of online shopping is one of the biggest questions currently facing the tech industry and financial markets.

I'll give it a try to present the shopping situation as clearly as I can.

For most of the decade leading up to 2020, Americans have increasingly shopped online at a predictable. E-commerce sales have grown about 10-15% annually, according to Census Bureau data, recouping slightly more of the money Americans spend in stores each year.

Next, internet shopping became hyperactive, with our online purchases increasing by at least 50% in the first few months after the virus began spreading in the United States, according to the recently revised government figures.

But last year shopping in physical stores accelerated, and online shopping has since lost ground. For many people, it is a relief to walk the aisles of stores again. High inflation can also cause people to spend more of their budget on essentials than we do.