Pandemic e-commerce boom here to stay

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The e-commerce boom, driven largely by internet shopping that can take place with the click of a phone, has become increasingly local, new data shows.
Commercial success online is less dependent on geographic location than ever before.
Stripe, the digital payment processing company, on Moday released a report documenting the dramatic expansion of the internet economy over the past five years.
A diffusion of talent and capital, accelerated by the pandemic, has facilitated entrepreneurship outside of Silicon Valley and major metros.
More than 350 cities, according to the report, are now home to businesses that collectively process more than $100 million in transactions annually using Stripe.
In 2017, there were only 50.
“We’re seeing a lot of growth in the e-commerce economy,” Emily Glassberg Sands, head of information for Stripe, tells Axios. “But the biggest step function change has traditionally been offline businesses lighting up online.”
“These could be farmers, truck drivers, barbers,” she says. “There are whole industries waking up to the internet and finding resilience through online financial services.”
Zoom in: The Stripe report noted that the rise of internet commerce has been most pronounced in “non-traditional tech centers.”
Columbus, Ohio, for example, saw its online transactions increase by 40 times over the past five years.
Richmond, Virginia – no slouch – saw its volume increase twentyfold.
Rural areas are witnessing growth, too. In the country’s five least populous counties, there is now one Stripe business for every 36 people.
“We’re really excited about how distributed this growth is,” Glassberg Sands says. “We’re seeing more equal opportunity to create a company wherever you are, to get started quickly and to have access to a broad range of customers.”
Morgan Stanley forecasts that the e-commerce boom is likely to continue.