The pie chart illustrates how regularly U.S. adults shopped online in 2015, while the bar chart compares various consumer segments based on their choice between e-commerce and brick-and-mortar retail.
Overall, the most prevalent purchasing habit was shopping online less often, whereas weekly online buying was the least widespread. Notably, the more often people made online purchases, the more they leaned toward digital shopping, with less frequent shoppers showing a distinctly stronger preference for physical stores.
Looking first at the pie chart, 37% of U.S. adults purchased goods online less often, making this the largest category. A further 28% shopped online a few times a month, while one fifth never made online purchases. By contrast, only around 15% bought products online every week, representing the smallest share. Turning to shopping preferences, around two-thirds of all online shoppers favoured physical stores, compared with one-third who preferred shopping online. Weekly online shoppers were the only group that favoured online shopping, at about 60%, whereas just under 40% opted for physical stores. Among monthly online shoppers, traditional stores remained more popular, accounting for approximately 58%, compared with just over 40% who chose to shop online. This gap became even more pronounced among less frequent shoppers, with over four fifths selecting physical stores, while fewer than one fifth purchased online.