EMARKETER forecasts US DTC sales to plateau at 19% of online retail through 2028
US direct-to-consumer e-commerce sales are on track to level off at around 19 percent of total US retail e-commerce sales through 2028, according to a May 2025 EMARKETER forecast cited by PPC Land. EMARKETER defines DTC narrowly: products a brand manufacturer sells directly to consumers through its own website, app or physical store, excluding marketplace storefronts such as Amazon or TikTok Shop, consignment arrangements, and private-label goods sold under a retailer's name such as Costco's Kirkland brand. The category surged during 2020 and 2021 as pandemic store closures pushed buying online, then began to plateau.
Attribution gaps compound as brands run DTC channels alongside retail media and marketplaces. Research from Incremental, covering more than 150,000 campaigns across four retail media networks, found siloed attribution missed between 36 and 53 percent of total retail media impact, a gap that widened to 67 to 80 percent for off-site video. TikTok Shop published documentation on August 6, 2026 for an Off-site Performance Analysis report that shows whether TikTok advertising drives incremental sales on a seller's independent site, but the report's coverage stops at DTC and Shopify storefronts and excludes Amazon, Walmart and offline sales. Budget allocated to DTC media without matching attribution coverage risks credit assigned to the wrong channel.