E-commerce is a pretty sound long-term investment. Although online marketplaces like eBay (NASDAQ:EBAY) and Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) are by no means new, there's still plenty of growth opportunities available in e-commerce as greater smartphone use across the world makes it more convenient to buy online.
Despite being worth a hefty $9 trillion in 2019, according to Grand View Research, the industry is going to continue growing at a compounded annual growth rate of 14.7% until 2027.
Although the easy option may be to just invest in Amazon, the company's mammoth $1.7 trillion valuation will make it challenging to earn a strong return off of the stock. A better option might be to invest in the Global X E-commerce ETF (NASDAQ:EBIZ) which will give investors broader exposure to the industry.
The fund holds shares of "companies positioned to benefit from the increased adoption of e-commerce as a distribution model, including companies whose principal business is in operating e-commerce platforms, providing E-commerce software and services, and/or selling goods and services online."
While Amazon is included in the fund's holdings, it only makes up a little over 4% of the net assets and there are 11 companies ahead of it, including Etsy (NASDAQ:ETSY), which accounts for 5.55% of the fund's net assets. Ebay is the fourth largest holding.
There are 40 stocks in the fund in total, with the vast majority (70%) being in the consumer discretionary sector. Communication services (22.5%) make up the next largest category of holdings.
The fund has been around since 2018 and during that time it has outperformed the S&P 500, rising more than 108% while the index has risen by 82%.
