NTIA · United States · November 2023
Online shopping and consumer services in the U.S.
How common is this activity, and how does participation differ by age and family income?
Internet users aged 15+ · Prior six months · Assisted analysis checked 2026-10-08
of U.S. internet users aged 15+ were reported as using the internet for online shopping, travel reservations or other consumer services during the prior six months in NTIA’s November 2023 survey.
This is a combined activity question. The percentage does not isolate retail purchases, purchases through social media or a particular shopping platform.
People · U.S. civilian noninstitutionalized internet users aged 15+ · November 2023 · Not all residents, households or all adults aged 18+
Source: NTIA / U.S. Census Bureau Analyze Table, Nov 2023 / eCommerceUser / adultInternetUser, usProp. Original question: ECOMME, questionnaire page 8. Social Usage converts the source proportion to a percentage.
Participation rises across the published income bands
The reported share was 57.7% among internet users in families with annual income under $25,000, compared with 87.0% in the $100,000-or-more band. The descriptive difference is 29.3 percentage points.
U.S. internet users aged 15+ within each annual family-income band · November 2023
Source: NTIA aggregate CSV, row 763, incomeU25 / income2549 / income5074 / income7599 / income100p Prop columns. Each bar is a within-group percentage, not that group’s share of the online-shopping audience. Exact values and source standard errors below.
The percentages describe participation, not spending. They cannot show how much a family bought, transaction values or the share of a family’s income spent online. Family income is a classification of the people surveyed; the estimates still count people, not families.
This is also a comparison among people who already use the internet. Nonusers are outside every denominator. The income pattern is unadjusted for age, education or other characteristics, so it cannot establish an effect of income on activity.
The highest reported age-group estimate is for ages 25–44
The age pattern is not a simple decline from youngest to oldest. Participation was 82.3% among internet users aged 25–44, compared with 73.8% among ages 15–24, 77.0% among ages 45–64 and 64.7% among ages 65+.
U.S. internet users within each age band · November 2023 · Prior six months
Source: NTIA aggregate CSV, row 763, age1524 / age2544 / age4564 / age65p Prop columns. Ages 15–24 include teenagers and adults; this is not a teen-only survey.
The difference between the 25–44 and 65+ estimates is 17.6 percentage points. These are descriptive comparisons of source point estimates, with no significance test. They do not describe changes as the same people age, and the published marginal cells cannot answer an age-by-income question.
Why “shopping” needs the rest of the question
ECOMME asks one Yes/No question covering several activities:
“In the past six months, [have you/has NAME] used the Internet for online shopping, travel reservations, or other consumer services on the Internet? (If needed) [Do you/Does NAME] use the Internet for online shopping, travel reservations, or other consumer services?”
Source: November 2023 questionnaire, PDF page 150 / Attachment 8, page 8. USEINT on PDF page 148 gives the at-least-occasional, past-six-month activity context and random selection of an internet user aged 15+. Household proxy answers are permitted.
A Yes response could reflect shopping, travel reservations or another consumer service. These cells do not separate the components or identify which combination a person used. It would be inaccurate to label the full percentage as the share who bought a physical product online.
The question also does not establish a number of purchases, purchase frequency, money spent, product discovery, purchase intent or a sale attributed to an advertisement. It supplies no Instagram, TikTok, Facebook Marketplace or other platform breakdown.
For social-platform activity, start with the separately defined social-network and messaging questions or the source-specific evidence on Instagram, TikTok and Facebook. Their audience figures cannot be multiplied by this percentage to estimate shoppers on a platform.
All estimates and sampling uncertainty
Read the national, age and family-income figures
| Group | Share (%) | Source SE (pp) | Source column |
|---|---|---|---|
| United States | 75.8175 | 0.2966 | usProp |
| 15–24 | 73.7806 | 0.8504 | age1524Prop |
| 25–44 | 82.2845 | 0.4203 | age2544Prop |
| 45–64 | 77.0166 | 0.4131 | age4564Prop |
| 65+ | 64.6861 | 0.5674 | age65pProp |
| Under $25,000 | 57.7224 | 0.9258 | incomeU25Prop |
| $25,000–49,999 | 65.5097 | 0.7099 | income2549Prop |
| $50,000–74,999 | 75.2201 | 0.7417 | income5074Prop |
| $75,000–99,999 | 81.3691 | 0.6797 | income7599Prop |
| $100,000 or more | 87.0469 | 0.3743 | income100pProp |
The separately weighted national estimate is not an unweighted average of the age or income percentages. These are separate classifications, not ten pieces of a whole. Do not add them or infer intersections.
The source provides six-decimal proportions and proportion standard errors. Multiplying each by 100 gives the four-decimal percentages and percentage-point SEs here. An SE is not a confidence interval or margin of error. The selected cells supply no item sample sizes or confidence intervals.
Source: NTIA Analyze Table, Nov 2023 / eCommerceUser / adultInternetUser; each named Prop column and corresponding PropSE column. The under-15 activity cells are blank and are not converted to zero.
Methods and reproducibility
Survey population, selection and weighting
Fieldwork ran 12–18 November 2023. The Census Current Population Survey supplement covers the civilian noninstitutionalized population in the 50 states and District of Columbia. The activity sequence selects one internet user aged 15+ per household, skipping it when all internet users are under 15. A household member may answer for the selected person.
NTIA’s official tabulation assigns eCommerceUser to adultInternetUser and uses the random-respondent weight, PWPRMWGT. The published activity is the PEECOMME = 1 indicator. Source sampling errors use the tabulator’s respondent replicate weights and successive difference replication. Age bands come from PRTAGE; family-income bands come from HEFAMINC. Family income is not personal salary or household income.
Social Usage selects already-published aggregate cells and processes no individual responses. Census editing and hot-deck imputation, nonresponse, reporting and coverage error can affect the results beyond their sampling SEs. We perform no adjustment, gap-uncertainty calculation, significance test or causal analysis.
Sources: technical documentation, PDF pages 7, 142, 148 and 150; November 2023 code, lines 16/26, 33/36, 39/41 and 99; official random-respondent tabulation.
Exact conversions and descriptive differences
Find Nov 2023 / eCommerceUser / adultInternetUser in the original CSV. Row 763 includes the header in our retained version; the stable variable, wave and universe identify the record if later row numbers move.
National proportion: 0.758175 × 100 = 75.8175%. Source SE: 0.002966 × 100 = 0.2966 percentage points.
- Ages 25–44 minus 65+: 82.2845 − 64.6861 = 17.5984 percentage points.
- $100,000 or more minus under $25,000: 87.0469 − 57.7224 = 29.3245 percentage points.
We subtract the full-precision percentages before rounding. These differences compare groups at one time; they are not percent growth. Separate source SEs do not provide the covariance needed for a gap uncertainty estimate.
Retained CSV SHA-256: c9b744849847775cf9419c8565553830b9fa374f62bbd674d4f22888521fd10a. Analysis: ntia-shopping-2026-10-08-v1. The source, original questions, code, selected cells, formulas and page are bound to an assisted review.
Dates, historical limits and reuse
- Data period
- November 2023 · Fieldwork 12–18 November
- Source publication
- 2024-06-06 · 2023 Data Explorer update
- Retained statistical retrieval
- 2026-10-01 (UTC)
- Assisted analysis review
- 2026-10-08
November 2023 is the latest eCommerceUser wave in the retained table. This page selects one wave, not a historical growth series or a current-year estimate. Earlier question wording, population selection and weighting require a separate comparability review before adding a trend.
The selected federal aggregates support attributed editorial facts and original charts/table on an ad-supported publication. This page offers no new data download, image export or embed. Shopping is not included in the existing digital-behavior explorer’s five-activity downloads.
U.S. federal statistical work; 17 U.S.C. § 105; original rights verification 2026-10-01. Source: National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), Internet Use Survey, November 2023; U.S. Census Bureau Current Population Survey. Selection and presentation by SocialUsage; no agency endorsement implied.
This is assisted source and calculation review, not independent human editorial approval. No source artwork, agency logo or individual response is reproduced.