• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, December 16, 2020

For all of Madison Avenue's focus on digital performance media and marketing, and how it drives ecommerce, a new report from GroupM Business Intelligence is a powerful reminder that the vast majority of retail sales still happen in a physical retail location, not online.

The report projects that even after many brands and retailers accelerated their digital strategies during and coming out of the global COVID-19 pandemic, retail sales will still come primarily from brick-and-mortar locations. In the U.S., ecommerce is projected to account for only 16.2% of all retail sales next year.

While ecommerce's share of retail jumps up to 27.3% in a market like China, it's as low as 6.6% in a market like Australia, the report projects.

The worldwide ecommerce share averages are 17.3% in 2020, 19.3% in 2021.

The report does project that ecommerce will continue to expand at a faster rate and will grow its share of retail worldwide, and that it will also have a fundamental impact on the advertising and marketing strategies of retailers and the brands that distribute through them.

"Omnichannel strategies are increasingly important as ecommerce will continue to grow as online shopping becomes more appealing to consumers and wider groups of product categories," GroupM notes in the report, adding, "It will also continue to grow as the very concept of retailing evolves."