Sentiment rebounds as AI reshapes market performance
The MIT CTL annual omnichannel survey reveals how businesses have perceived their eCommerce performance over the years.
Between 2023 and 2024, while consistent growth in sales was perceived, the positive sentiment decreased slightly, aligned with post-pandemic normalization.
During 2025, however, growth perception increased sharply, with 81% of respondents reporting this.
When broken down by industry, reported eCommerce sales growth is consistent with more than 70% of respondents reporting it.
Beauty & personal care, fashion, and toys lead the ranking, each at or above, 89%, closely followed by electronics and food & beverage.
Healthcare and pharma had the lowest growth reported at 73%, and the highest share of ‘no change’ responses at 23%.
Driving operational convergence and high-performance execution
When observing the impact of the eCommerce growth within the supply chain, this year’s results show clear convergence around execution.
Distribution and logistics, inventory management, and order fulfillment all stand at 60%, with demand forecasting (56%) and network design (54%) close behind.
Unlike last year, where distribution and fulfillment were also top of mind but with a wider spread, the tighter clustering in 2025 suggests that companies are shifting their focus to high-performance execution.
Based on the 2025 survey respondents, the impact of eCommerce is no longer concentrated in isolated points of pressure, but it’s now embedded across the supply chain's operations.
Sustainability and returns management are also rising in importance (48% vs 27% and 46% vs. 38% respectively), reflecting growing attention to the complexity that eCommerce and seamless returns bring to supply chains.
eCommerce growth driving structural changes across supply chains
More than half of respondents report that its major impact is focused on end-to-end visibility (53%), higher overall sales (53%), greater automation (52%), and faster delivery expectations (51%).
Alongside these, cost-to-serve and returns have risen meaningfully compared to last year, increasing from 38% to 42% and from 33% to 40%, respectively.
The shift indicates that as eCommerce matures, operational complexity and profitability pressures are becoming more prominent.
That said, once we break it down by type of business, we observe both shared pressures and meaningful differences in how each segment experiences growth. End-to-end visibility is the clear differentiator.
While manufacturing and retail both report a strong eCommerce impact (53% of respondents), third-party logistics providers and wholesalers report a minor impact. On the other hand, total sales growth is the most evenly felt impact across all four segments. Retail leads on automation at 61%, reflecting the sector’s ongoing investment in improved efficiency and performance.
When compared with other eCommerce impacts, cost-to-serve and returns sit in the lower range across all types of businesses.
