Answers to 5 of your most pressing questions about retail and ecommerce amid economic uncertainty

Reliable data and trustworthy indicators of what to expect amid economic uncertainty are key to making smart business decisions. At Insider Intelligence, our forecasting team is constantly analyzing historical data, combing through insights from thousands of data sources, and reacting to industry forces to predict where markets and segments are heading.

Whitney Birdsall, senior forecasting analyst, worked on our latest forecast for US retail and ecommerce sales in Q2. She tells us how recent market turmoil, supply chain issues, and economic uncertainty could affect our forecast, which measures the total value of all the merchandise sold on ecommerce platforms. Our Global Ecommerce report collection will have a deeper dive into the numbers and what they mean; it will publish at the end of July.

Insider Intelligence (II): Inflation just hit 8.6%. How did you factor that into the most recent forecast for US retail and ecommerce sales?

Whitney Birdsall (WB): We factored inflation data up until April into our estimates for June’s forecast figures. We expect full-year inflation to be down from the 8.6% level.

Weaker sales will be partly offset by higher prices for products.

• In our February update, we expected retail sales to grow by 3% for 2022.
• In this most recent June update, we’ve revised sales growth for the year to 6.4%, largely based on inflation-driven price increases on essentials.