Short answer: available technology-tracking estimates put the number of global e-commerce websites at roughly 26.2–26.5 million in 2023, compared with about 19.8 million in 2021. That is an implied increase of approximately 32% over the two-year period. It does not prove that online stores rose by 39% during calendar year 2023, nor does it represent an audited count of active businesses.
The central problem is definition. “Online stores” may mean detected websites, storefronts using a particular platform, registered retailers, marketplace sellers or businesses that actually took orders. The widely repeated global figures appear to be estimates of detected e-commerce websites, and their underlying methodology is not sufficiently transparent to establish one definitive worldwide total.
What the reported numbers show
| Measure or source trail | Reported figure | What it appears to measure | Main limitation |
|---|---|---|---|
| GrowthDevil estimate | 19.8 million in 2021; about 26.2 million in 2023 | Global e-commerce stores or websites | Secondary attribution; year labels and growth calculations are inconsistent |
| DemandSage estimate | 26.5 million in 2023; 26.2 million in 2022 | Global e-commerce websites | Secondary source citing Markinblog; collection method is not independently demonstrated |
| Forbes commentary | More than 26.2 million in 2023 | Global e-commerce sites | Commentary, not a complete census |
| BuiltWith-related reporting | More than 26.2 million sites in a cited 2022 context | Websites identified through technology detection | Can miss, duplicate or include inactive sites; cited country distribution excluded China |
| Belarus academic study | 28,927 stores at the beginning of 2023 | Stores in one national market | Country-specific definition; not comparable with a global website estimate |
Sources: GrowthDevil, DemandSage, Forbes, Kinsta’s BuiltWith summary and the Belarus study.
Did online stores grow during 2023 itself?
The evidence supports a larger storefront population in 2023 than in 2021, but it does not cleanly establish a January-to-December 2023 increase. Republished figures commonly show approximately 26.0–26.2 million sites in 2022 and 26.2–26.5 million in 2023. Depending on which figures are used, that suggests either a large jump between 2021 and 2022 followed by modest growth in 2023, or differences in collection dates and definitions.
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The often-repeated “39% growth” statement should not be presented as a 2023 year-over-year result. GrowthDevil associates that percentage with the broader 2021–2023 comparison, while its displayed figures do not provide a clean 2023 annual calculation. Using 19.8 million as the baseline and 26.2 million as the endpoint produces an increase of about 6.4 million websites, or 32.3%.
What counts as an online store?
A technology-detection dataset may identify a domain running Shopify, WooCommerce or another commerce system. That is different from counting legally registered businesses or merchants with sales.
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- Website or domain: a web address detected as using e-commerce technology.
- Storefront: a customer-facing catalog and checkout, possibly one of several operated by the same company.
- Online retailer: a business that sells through its own site, a marketplace or both.
- Marketplace seller: a merchant that may have no independent website.
- Active merchant: a business currently accepting orders and generating transactions.
One retailer can therefore produce multiple country domains, brands or subdomains. Conversely, a marketplace seller can be economically active without appearing in a website count. A catalog may be classified as commerce even when checkout is disabled, and an abandoned site may remain in a historical technology database.
Why global totals disagree
Different definitions and detection rules
Platforms leave technical fingerprints, but not every commerce site exposes a recognizable technology. Platform migrations can make a store disappear from one dataset and appear in another, while duplicated regional domains can inflate a total.
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Activity is difficult to verify
Detection generally proves that a site was found, not that it was profitable, taking orders or even online at the end of 2023. Password-protected, temporarily offline and abandoned stores can all complicate the count.
Geographic coverage is uneven
Technology datasets may underrepresent markets where commerce is concentrated in local platforms or marketplaces. The BuiltWith-related summary cited by Kinsta specifically notes that its country distribution did not include China, so those country shares cannot be treated as a complete global map.
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What other 2023 indicators say
Store counts should not be substituted for shopper, sales or parcel statistics. Those measures describe different parts of e-commerce.
- In Finland, Posti characterized 2023 online-commerce growth as modest. Pharmacy and cosmetics demand rose 2.3% from January through September, while some home-related categories declined. Posti’s index is national and category-specific.
- CTT reported 5.1 million online shoppers in Portugal in 2023, up 1.1% from 2022, and 33.8 million in Spain, up 5.9%. These are shopper counts, not store totals. CTT’s 2023 integrated report also reported a 39.2% increase in Iberian postal volumes, a company-and-region measure rather than evidence of global store creation.
- Company results were mixed. Build-A-Bear reported a 5.8% fall in e-commerce demand in fiscal 2023 even as other parts of its business grew. The earnings transcript is an individual-company example, not an industry benchmark.
Together, these indicators show why more detected storefronts do not automatically mean stronger consumer demand or higher merchant profitability.
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Why the number of storefronts may have risen
Several plausible forces can increase detected websites without guaranteeing durable businesses:
- Businesses retained online channels created during the pandemic.
- Hosted platforms and plug-ins reduced the technical cost of launching a site.
- Social-commerce and marketplace tools made digital selling accessible to smaller merchants.
- Physical retailers added direct-to-consumer sites and localized domains.
- Companies created separate storefronts for currencies, languages, countries or brands.
- Low-cost experiments produced short-lived or abandoned stores that still entered a detection database.
- Businesses used websites for discovery, subscriptions, ordering and retention even when most sales occurred elsewhere.
What the estimate cannot tell you
- How many detected sites were active throughout 2023.
- How many stores were profitable or generated meaningful revenue.
- How many closed during the year.
- Whether multiple domains belonged to one business.
- How much global e-commerce sales grew.
- Whether consumer demand kept pace with the number of storefronts.
- How many marketplace sellers lacked standalone websites.
What the trend means for merchants
A larger storefront population lowers the barrier to entry but raises competitive pressure. Launching a site is not a durable advantage by itself. Merchants need a differentiated offer, dependable fulfillment, retention programs and customer-acquisition economics that work after promotional spending ends.
Platform selection should follow operating needs rather than headline market share. Shopify is designed for a hosted, fast launch; WooCommerce offers WordPress-based control but places hosting, security and updates on the merchant; BigCommerce suits established catalogs, B2B and omnichannel operations; Wix and Squarespace are often appropriate for design-led businesses and simpler catalogs. Marketplace selling through Amazon can add reach while introducing fees, policy dependence and a weaker direct customer relationship. Current plan limits and prices change by region, so verify each vendor’s official terms before committing.
What would establish a definitive global count?
A credible census would need a published definition, a stated observation date, global domain and platform coverage, deduplication rules, treatment of marketplaces and a test for whether each site was active and transacting. It would also need to explain how regional storefronts, platform migrations, inactive domains and countries with limited technology-detection coverage were handled. The sources behind the commonly repeated 26.2–26.5 million figures do not provide enough of that detail in the available material.
Verdict
The defensible conclusion is that the online storefront population was substantially larger in 2023 than in 2021: roughly 26.2–26.5 million detected e-commerce websites versus about 19.8 million in 2021. Treat that as a directional, multi-year estimate—not an exact count of active online retailers and not proof of a precise 2023 year-over-year growth rate.
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