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The latest figures from the US Department of Commerce show that on-line retail sales grew by 3.7 percent in the second quarter of this year to hit USD10.24 billion. In the first quarter of 2002, US e-commerce sales were USD9.88 billion, an 11.6 percent slide from the last quarter of 2001.
But the first quarter slide can be largely attributable to the Christmas boom, which, unlike most economic data released by the Department of Commerce, is not taken into account. The report is based on a survey of 11,000 US retailers, and it does not include certain on-line services, such as concert ticket purchases, on-line brokerage activities, pornography or e-travel purchases, the largest e-commerce segment.
The report also showed that e-tailing consists of only a small fraction of overall retail sales in the United States. In the second quarter of the year, Internet retailers saw their share of total retail sales decline for first time since the second quarter of 2001, falling to 1.2 percent from 1.3 percent in the previous quarter.
Moreover, on-line sales grew at a much slower pace than retail activity in general, the government's figures said. While on-line sales rose 3.7 percent in the quarter, total sales rose a much stronger 11 percent.
Still, a more positive figure for Internet retailers was that on-line purchases climbed 24.2 percent year-on-year, the largest gain since the second quarter of 2001, when the US government recorded a 29.9 percent jump.
Some analysts have attributed the massive year-on-year jump to the maturation of the e-commerce industry, which in recent months has introduced new means to encourage shoppers to buy. Aggressive shipping promotions by firms such as Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble and Buy.com are cited as the primary number boosters, with all three firms offering free shipping to consumers under varying circumstances.
Meanwhile the numbers also seem to concur with recent figures produced by research firm ComScore Media Metrix, which said that on-line consumer spending in the US grew by 41 percent year-on-year in the second quarter, to hit USD17.5 billion, with USD7.8 billion of that in on-line travel, which was also up 46 percent.
Those figures, released in June, were followed by numbers for the month of July, which showed even more growth in the early part of the third quarter, with on-line consumer sales of computer hardware especially strong, up by 30 percent over July 2001 to USD927 million. E-travel sales were also up in July by 32 percent, reaching a level of USD2.9 billion.
"Although consumer spending has been variously impacted by market uncertainty, we're seeing encouraging results in key e-commerce categories," commented Peter Daboll, ComScore Media Metrix division president.
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