By Taylor Williams E-commerce has revealed some fundamental truths about how humans consume goods, mainly that price point and convenience are by far the most important criteria in purchase decisions. The COVID-19 pandemic has served to further ingrain these mentalities and to suck more people into the world of online shopping in the name of adhering to public health guidelines. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, in 2020, a year in which a global health crisis spurred furious increases in online shopping, total e-commerce sales clocked in at $791.7 billion, up a staggering 32.4 percent from 2019. E-commerce sales accounted for 14.4 percent of all retail sales in 2020 — essentially double the 7.3 percent proportion in 2015. In addition, the National Retail Federation (NRF) is projecting that e-commerce sales will grow by 18 to 23 percent in 2021, yielding a total annual sales volume in excess of $1.1 trillion. Based on 2020 figures provided by the NRF, which cited total retail sales of just over $4 trillion, the e-commerce component is now poised to account for more than a quarter of the market. Especially in the early days of the pandemic, the need to minimize shopping trips and shelter …
