E-Commerce Sales Continue to Rack up Double-Digit Gains

Retailers and analysts have been giving forecasts ranging from ho-hum to downright pessimistic for the upcoming holiday spending period, but the outlook for online retailers almost certainly is better. Growth rates in electronic-commerce remain near 20%, the U.S. Commerce Dept.'s Census Bureau reported on Monday. The Census Bureau's quarterly report on e-commerce says retail online spending totaled $34.7 billion on an adjusted basis that includes seasonal variations, up 19.3% from $29.1 billion in 2006's third quarter. In contrast, total retail spending grew just 3.8% in the third quarter to $1.02 trillion on an adjusted basis from $982.9 billion a year earlier. The third-quarter e-commerce growth rate was the second lowest of the past five quarters, but still in the high-teens to low-20% range that most analysts and academics who follow online retailing have been reporting for the past few years. Respective changes from the year-earlier period for the second quarter back through 2006's third quarter, according to the Census Bureau, were: 20.2%, 18.8%, 23.6%, and 20.9%. E-commerce's share of total retail trade was 3.4% in the third quarter, up from 3% in the year-earlier period. Back in late 1999, e-commerce's market share was just 0.6%, according to adjusted Census Bureau estimates. Apart from some plateaus, e-commerce's market share has been increasing steadily since then. The Census Bureau derives its quarterly figures from its Monthly Retail Trade Survey, which queries a random sample of 12,500 merchants in order to get a picture of the nation's approximately 2 million retailing establishments. E-commerce figures are based on orders made online, by e-mail or other electronic channel, but not necessarily paid online. The survey doesn't include online travel, financial, and ticket brokers. Adjusted figures account for seasonal and holiday and trading-day differences but do not include price increases.