Online shopping trends remain a key driver of equity returns

The growth of online shopping has been well-established for years now, but the pandemic has prompted an acceleration in that trend, which continues to be felt in relative stock returns.

The chart below shows the year-on-year growth rates of total US retail sales and online retail sales (non-store retailers) over the last five years (based on monthly retail sales reports from the US Census Bureau). We can see that online sales have been growing significantly faster than total sales the entire time, and most notably, are now near their highest growth rate (20%+) even as total retail sales dropped sharply earlier this year and are currently roughly unchanged from year-ago levels (indicating that non-online sales are down from a year ago).