Tariffs and trade disputes in recent months have challenged assumptions about what ecommerce growth will look like in 2025. After forecasting web sales in the State of American Ecommerce Report at the beginning of the year, Digital Commerce 360 is preparing to publish the 2025 edition of its annual Top 1000 Report. The full report includes new models from our data analysts that consider multiple ways the year could play out for online retailers.
The new report also contains Digital Commerce 360’s ranking of North America’s online retailers by annual web sales. These results are tracked year-round in the Top 1000 Database.
That’s why Digital Commerce 360 has modeled out a new scenario for current levels of tariffs, as well as one for elevated levels if negotiations between the U.S. and other countries fail to resolve disagreements. In the latter case, analysts see what would otherwise be 7.7% growth year over year for web sales at Top 1000 retailers reduced to 4.5%. That range of possibilities, along with new data and which types of retailers are poised to drive growth for the Top 1000, will be discussed at an upcoming webinar on June 26.
What is ecommerce growth going to look like in 2025?
Even if ecommerce sales growth remains limited due to the impact of tariffs on retailers in the Top 1000, Digital Commerce 360 analysis still shows that online sales are on track to grow. Earlier this week, analysis of U.S. Department of Commerce data revealed that U.S. ecommerce sales grew in the first quarter of 2025, albeit at the slowest rate in more than two years.
Meanwhile, the Baird/Digital Commerce 360 Ecommerce Stock Index showed two consecutive months of declines for publicly traded ecommerce companies in March and April. However, recent activity in May has shown some signs of recovery as some tariffs were paused and the U.S. and China moved ahead with trade negotiations.
As those talks progress, consumers are already adjusting their buying behavior, May survey results about tariffs from Digital Commerce 360 and Bizrate Insights showed.
Companies positioned to drive ecommerce growth
The upcoming Top 1000 Report captures the fastest-growing online merchants in the database, as well as the best-performing categories. Among them, Retail Chains as a group, which represents 206 retailers, led online retail in 2024 with web sales growth of 9.5% year over year. That was higher than even Amazon, which is No. 1 in the Top 1000 and achieved online sales growth of 8.6% over the same period.
Web sales growth by merchant type in 2024
Retail Chains can thank several factors for their overall strength in ecommerce. The first is their physical locations, which allow for options that their Web-Only competitors lack. Those facilities open up opportunities to provide services and experiences that can boost conversion rates. Omnichannel features such as curbside pickup, buy online, pick up in store (BOPIS), and in-store stock statuses were all associated with higher conversion rates for Retail Chains in the Top 1000 in 2024.
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