E-commerce
13 May 2026
Are online sales increasing? In French: are online sales increasing? At scale, many countries have long observed a growth in digital commerce in total spending, but the pace is not the same everywhere or in every quarter. Also, the macro question says nothing about your store without your own numbers.
This guide separates general trend and field reading, without promising a universal curve. You'll know what to check in your analytics, how to avoid misleading headlines, and how to connect "market in motion" to inventory, marketing, and service decisions.
We do not invent precise percentages by country or by month: official series and industry studies change methods and scope depending on the source. For your day-to-day management, the primary data remains yours: e-commerce analytics, e-commerce GA tracking.
For the framework: how e-commerce works, Shopify analytics, conversion benchmarks.
First point: "online sales" can mean your own site, marketplace, apps, social commerce; aggregating or separating these channels changes the picture: e-commerce and marketplace, social media and sales.
Second point: a favorable year for the sector can coincide with a plateau for you if acquisition, stock, or funnel weaken; the reverse also happens.
Third point: the comparison base matters. After a period of exceptional peak, a normalization can look like a decline even though the level remains high compared with an older average.
If you're in a hurry: remember that the useful question for a leader is “does my basket and my volume meet a realistic target over my time horizon?” rather than “is the market on fire?”.
Finally, distinguish traffic, conversion, and average basket; revenue can rise or fall for three different reasons.
For a hybrid retailer, also compare web sales with in-store pickups otherwise you sometimes underestimate the impact of the digital channel on total: omnichannel and ROI, store.
A team tip: once a quarter, set up a long series reading (even a simple one) in addition to weekly tracking; this avoids reacting to every micro-variation.
Before greatly increasing stock or ad budget based solely on a general article, ask who measured what, on what scope, and over what period.
Last word of introduction: online sales can grow in a favorable overall environment, but your result remains a product of offer, channel, and execution, not an automatic effect.
In meetings, the useful phrasing is often: “what does the long series say, what do our last twelve months say, and what changes if we remove a one-off spike?” Three levels avoid panic as well as euphoria.
Regarding terminology, "e-commerce growth" can refer to the channel's role in total retail, nominal revenue, or order volume; without precision, two people think they are talking about the same curve when they are actually talking about different metrics.
Finally, a favorable trend does not erase the execution errors: stockout on a bestseller, slow checkout page, advertising message poorly aligned with inventory. The market may rise while a store declines for very concrete internal reasons.
Summary
Yes, often in the long term: with essential nuances
One can answer yes, often in the long term for many countries on average, while adding but it is not linear or homogeneous. For your business, the answer is found in your dashboards and your year-over-year comparison adjusted for seasonality.
Macro versus micro
A national chart alone does not increase your orders; it provides a tailwind, not a guarantee.
Definition of online
Whether or not to include delivery, services, B2B, pickups: news headlines often omit these details.
Reference year
Comparing to the « right » year avoids false optimism or false alarmism.
Document internally which definition you use (site only, marketplaces included, B2B) before building a numerical target.
Teams that note the market weather alongside their KPIs better understand when a decline is external or self-inflicted.
For a multi-brand or multi-site portfolio, a « group » aggregation sometimes masks a site in difficulty offset by another; reading by entity keeps the decision honest.
If your definition of online includes click-and-collect in store, say so clearly to stakeholders; otherwise we are comparing figures that do not cover the same baskets.
Long-term trend, short-term noise, exceptional events
Long time series often show a ramp-up in the channel, paced by waves: innovation (mobile, logistics), adoption, then more mature phases where growth slows but volume remains high.
Cyclicality
Holidays, back-to-school season, sales: predictable peaks to compare year over year, not week over week.
Exceptional events
Periods of shift to online temporarily accelerate trends; then a phase of nuanced interpretation often follows.
Economic uncertainties
E-commerce is not disconnected from purchasing power or exchange rates for international stores.
To make a decision, avoid relying on a single ready-made metric; prefer three perspectives: long-term trend, your last twelve rolling months, and your latest campaign.
If you sell internationally, separate by currency part of the analysis; an increase in volume can hide a drop in net margin.
Regulatory changes (invoicing, data, cross-border transport) can temporarily slow a channel without it being "dead": note the effective date so you don’t confuse it with a weakening offer or marketing fatigue.
A stricter delivery and return policy in a market can lower the basket size while improving margin; macro data does not tell you whether that is good or bad for you without your margin dashboard.
Sector, channel and season: three reading filters
Not all categories move the same way. Luxury, food, equipment, services have neither the same cycles nor the same logistical constraints.
Peak season
Gifts, travel, gardening: different calendars: stock.
Durable goods
Longer purchase cycles; CAC patience matters: CAC and LTV.
Consumable
Recurring purchases are useful if service quality keeps up: loyalty.
If you compare yourself to a sector benchmark, check that the segment is the same (pure B2C versus mixed): benchmarks.
An SME can grow within its niche while a flat national aggregate would suggest otherwise; granularity saves the interpretation: brand.
In some categories, the professional buyer and the general public do not react to the same messages; a macro “B2C” indicator can mislead you if your core target is light B2B.
When a major competitor changes prices or delivery policy, your internal series can deteriorate quickly even though the national landscape remains expansionary; external benchmarking complements it, it does not replace the internal alert.
Your sales: the data that matters most
To know whether your online sales are growing, set up a stable view: same tool, same tagging rules, same comparison window.
Revenue and orders
Revenue and number of orders can diverge if the basket changes: average basket.
Conversion
Stable traffic with rising conversion may be enough: conversion, UX conversion.
Channels
Knowing what drives the total avoids generalizing a local success: traffic conversion.
Also monitor returns and cancellations; a nice-looking gross revenue with returns spiking can hide a colder trend: return rate.
Archive the major changes to the site (redesign, stock shortage, new carrier) alongside the charts; without a note, breaks are hard to explain.
To avoid the last-click bias, cross-check at least two views: marketing attribution if you use it, and performance by landing page or by campaign type; sales that rise may come from a single fragile lever.
A simple habit: compare the same calendar day year over year for peaks (Black Friday, sales), rather than smoothed calendar months that dilute the effect.
Mobile, marketplaces, social: the broader picture
Several structural levers often support the online channel over the long term: shopping habits, delivery, payment, mobile.
Mobile
A large share of journeys go through the phone: mobile first.
Marketplaces
They expand the visible offering and sometimes volume, with their own rules: Amazon.
Social
Discovery and impulse buying in certain segments: social channels.
These trends can inflate aggregates without helping you if your acquisition remains too narrow or if your funnel leaks.
If you open a new channel, note the start date so you do not mix before and after in the same mental average.
Platform fees and commissions can inflate apparent revenue while squeezing margin; when you read sector «records», ask whether the metric is gross or net of commissions.
The mobile journey deserves a dedicated roadmap: speed, form fields, local payment methods; a favorable mobile market does not make up for a funnel that breaks on a given screen size.
Macro opportunity, micro execution
An increase in the “market” does not mean that every additional euro is easy to capture. Competition for attention and logistics remains real.
Acquisition
Cost and quality of traffic: marketing costs, marketing plan.
SEO and content
Slow but cumulative building: SEO, content.
Loyalty
Useful email and automations: email, automation.
Budgets that rise at the same time as inventory and after-sales service without forecasting often end up creating cash-flow pressure despite high revenue.
For a small business, one well-mastered core channel beats three half-served channels when the macro trend pushes everyone to speed up.
Periods when “everyone is buying online” also attract more advertisers; acquisition costs can rise even if gross demand is high, which cools net profit if you do not monitor MER or efficiency per euro spent.
An often overlooked lever: reactivating inactive customers and increasing purchase frequency across the existing base often costs less than chasing only new customers during hype periods.
Shopping experience: capturing (or losing) demand
Visitors expect speed, fee clarity, quick responses. The gap between expectation and experience destroys conversion even when the market is growing.
Funnel
Checkout and abandonment: checkout, cart abandonment.
Product pages
Proof and accuracy: product pages, experience.
Customer Service
Response within the promised timeframe: remarkable experience.
A small increase in conversion rate on the same traffic is often worth more than a poorly targeted advertising rush: CRO.
Avoid optimistic delivery-time promises as soon as peaks approach; a window kept is better than a review catastrophe.
Reviews and ratings often amplify the perception of growth or decline: a slight deterioration in the average customer service response time can weigh more than an additional display campaign; integrate service and reputation into the question, “Are we aligned with demand?”
On the product page, trust signals (clear returns, real availability, accurate visuals) reduce hesitation; when the market is strong, that is precisely when the competition compares page against page.
Invest when things are going well: without blind haste
A favorable trend in e-commerce can justify investment tests, not always a sudden scale-up without an operational setup.
Inventory and supply
Especially in peak season: orders.
Scalability
Preparation, errors, returns: scaling, logistics.
Measurement
Decide based on consistent cohorts and windows: funnel.
Align your objective with human capacity; a national trend does not create additional packaging on its own.
If you hire for a peak, document the procedures before the temporary staff arrive; chaos is expensive in errors.
A volume increase without packaging quality control multiplies breakage and returns; revenue grows and then margins melt away. Anticipate this risk in the peak plan, not after the first damaged parcels.
For inventory decisions, a low / central / high scenario is often enough to frame the team; you do not need a perfect forecast, only a stated range and a correction plan if reality approaches the worst case.
Common mistakes when reading “web growth”
Several reading mistakes recur when commenting on « online growth ».
Mixing nominal and volume
Inflation can inflate revenue without more parcels: price.
Ignoring returns
Revenue received differs from net margin after after-sales service: returns.
Comparing incomparable periods
Technical outage week last year, exceptional promotion, stockout.
Misleading media headlines
A « record » figure without scope, without seasonal adjustment, and without a link to the methodology note remains noise useful for internal debate, not an investment directive.
Example: doubling ad spend because « the internet is growing », without checking margin per order, often just creates volume without cash.
Keep an internal context page: assumptions for the quarter, decisions made, expected result; this disciplines reading.
Beware of corridors that are too narrow: a figure announced as « up » may be only slightly higher in volume and much higher in price; conversely, an apparent stability in revenue may hide more orders with smaller baskets.
When an industry study is circulating internally, note in one line the surveyed population (pure online stores, hybrid retailers, telephone panel) to avoid hasty conclusions.
Internal signals to monitor each month
Beyond the aggregates, watch a handful of signals that tell you whether you are benefiting from the tailwind or not.
New customers
Cost and quality: new customers.
Organic traffic
Sustained growth or a one-off spike: organic traffic.
Cart and repeat purchases
Lean programs: loyalty.
If the macro backdrop is favorable but your signals are declining, prioritize funnel and offer diagnostics before blaming “the trend.”
For teams that keep a five-line weekly dashboard, internal debates are shorter and better informed.
Sometimes add a “qualitative” line: recurring customer feedback, a product that is blowing up in after-sales support, a problematic carrier; numeric series don’t tell the whole story when the problem is localized.
If you are testing a new offer (bundle, light subscription, refurbished), isolate the test period in the report so you don’t pollute the reading of the core range: project framework.
Qstomy: hold support when volume follows
When traffic increases, support often follows the same curve. Qstomy, a conversational assistant for Shopify, helps answer questions about orders, products, and deliveries while keeping the brand tone: AI chatbot, automated customer service.
Useful links: demo, offers, assisted selling, support, analytics. The goal is to maintain response quality as volume rises, without sacrificing sensitive cases.
Even without AI, template responses updated after each campaign reduce the gap between the marketing promise and customer service reality.
If your sales curve accelerates, also check the delivery times stated on the site; poorly communicated growth quickly becomes a reputation problem.
Summary, FAQ, and Further Reading
In brief
Often yes in the long term for many national aggregates, but not linearly or uniformly.
Sector, defined channel, and reference year change the interpretation.
Your analytics remain the primary source for your store.
Conversion, service, and stock turn the macro trend into micro results.
FAQ
Do online sales increase every year everywhere?
Not guaranteed quarter by quarter or country by country; look at the source series rather than a single headline.
Should I increase my inventory if « the market » rises?
Only if your internal forecast and logistical capacity can support it: efficient inventory.
How do I compare my revenue to last year?
Same sales calendar, same return rules, same channel scope: Google Analytics e-commerce.
Is a sector benchmark enough?
Useful for questioning your funnel, not for setting a goal without your data: benchmarks.
Does social commerce replace the website?
Often complementary; keep a clear strategy: social media and e-commerce.
What should I do if my revenue stagnates while the market seems promising?
Diagnose conversion, acquisition, cart, and retention before increasing ad spend: traffic.
To go further
Enzo
13 May 2026
