Ecommerce Is Only 3% of Retail Sales? No Way!

Dan from ModernBill sent me this Forbes article about Bill Me Later. It says ecommerce represents just 3% of all retail sales. Could that be true? My guess would have been 10%+, maybe even 20%. I did some looking around and here's what I found:

From the New York Times: The National Retail Federation says 47% of American consumers will make at least one holiday purchase online. Jupiter Research says total 2006 ecommerce volume could reach $100 billion, a 20% increased compared to last year. BUT - Internet sales will constitute just 6% of holiday shopping.

From CNET: Online shopping increased 32% compared to last year *in the 2 days following Thanksgiving*, representing 7.7% of all Visa transactions *during that time period*. E-commerce sales rose 41%, to $205 million, and accounted for 13% of all Visa transactions *on Thanksgiving Day*.

From Syscon:  comScore says  Black Friday online sales increased by 42% compared  to last year, and November 1-24 online sales rose 23%. It points out that ShopLocal.com saw a triple digit  traffic increase before and during Black Friday, as more and more consumers now use online resources to pinpoint available deals from offline retailers.

So I'm in a much smaller minority than I realized. I'm looking around my apartment, and there's hardly anything I didn't buy online.

Comments

[Mark Crofton]

Hi Isabel,
Reminds me of one of my first marketing classes in business school. The professor asked us what percentage of beer sold in the US is imported. The median guess was well over double the actual percentage sold.
The prof's point: one must be wary of the inherent opinion bias that assumes others act as you (and those you associate with) do. Great point to keep in mind when designing marketing campaigns and still a pretty good point for more everyday situations.
BTW, I would have guessed north of 10% for online sales too. Just goes to show you...

-Mark

[Isabel Wang]

I took a statistics class that started the same way: the professor gave all kinds of examples to show that nobody is the "median voter" on every issue, even though most people assume that their opinions and behavior are pretty typical.

On the bright side, there's more room than I thought for ecommerce (and imported beer) growth. Maybe I should buy some Amazon shares :)

[dongmei]

And I'm the opposite. Looking around, I can hardly see Anything I bought online other than books from Amazon. I need to 'see' before I buy. And books are books, it doesn't matter. But I am improving, very slowly. The % of online retail sales will only go up. So buy the stock.