Despite the bad economy, the combined sales of the 500 largest web retailers in 2008 grew nearly eight times faster than the overall retailing market, according to Internet Retailer’s soon-to-be-published Top 500 Guide.
Last year the combined sales of the Top 500 grew by 11.7% to $115.85 billion from $103.69 billion in 2007 while Internet Retailer calculates that total U.S. business-to-consumer e-commerce sales grew year over year by 4.6% to $178.18 billion from $170.41 billion. Total online sales are made up of the sales of the Top 500, an Internet Retailer-estimated $21.6 billion in U.S. gross merchandise volume at eBay and $40.7 billion in sales by online retailers not in the Top 500, an Internet Retailer estimate based on the U.S. Department of Commerce report of online sales. Sales across all general merchandise, excluding restaurants, gasoline stations and fuel sales, as measured by the Department of Commerce, equaled $2.744 trillion, an increase of 1.4% from $2.705 trillion in 2007.
Clearly the Internet and e-commerce accomplished what stores and catalogs couldn’t last year: drive sales. In 2008, the collective sales of the 100 largest merchants in the Top 500 Guide grew by 14.3% to $98.60 billion from $86.30 billion in 2007. The biggest 100 retailers accounted for 85.1% of all Top 500 sales and 55.3% of U.S. web sales. Smaller niche Top 500 merchants also slightly outpaced the e-retailing industry’s overall growth rate. Last year the combined revenue of the Top 500’s 100 smallest merchants – companies with annual revenue of $9 million to $15.2 million – increased by 13.2% to $1.20 billion from $1.06 billion in the prior year.
As in previous years, web-only merchants posted the biggest increases in Internet sales across all merchant categories in 2008, thanks to Amazon.com, which accounted for 52% of category sales.
By category, last year’s results show:
- Combined sales for all top 500 web-only merchants grew year over year by 20.7% to $36.84 billion from $30.52 billion.
- Consumer brand manufacturers grew web sales by 15.3% to $14 billion from $12.14 billion in 2007.
- Retail chains in the Top 500 grew combined web sales last year by 12% to $45.11 billion from $40.37 billion.
- Catalog companies posted a drop in sales last year, declining by 3.6% to $19.90 billion from $20.65 billion.
Amazon dominated all other Top 500 retailers and the e-commerce market in 2008. Last year sales at Amazon grew more than five times faster than the rest of the business-to-consumer market—up 29.5% to $19.17 billion from $14.80 billion in the prior year.
The e-commerce market wasn’t recession proof in 2008. Last year 74 Top 500 retailers had flat or declining sales, compared with 25 in 2007 and just 13 in 2006. But the Internet was certainly the channel that drove sales for many merchants last year, especially chain retailers. For 31 of the top 50 chains, the web grew while total sales declined. And for those chains, 41 of 50 had web sales that grew while comparable store sales declined.
The Top 500 Guide ranks America’s 500 largest web retailing organizations based on annual sales. Each retailer’s listing also includes: site traffic, conversion rate, average ticket, senior management, key vendors and where each retailer ranks in the market they serve. The Top 500 Guide includes 206 e-retail businesses that are owned or operated by web-only merchants, 152 by retail chains, 86 by catalog and direct-marketing firms, and 56 by consumer branded manufacturers.
The all-new data for Top500Guide.com goes live on May 11. Individual subscriptions for Top500Guide.com are available for $195. Discounts are available for multiple user memberships within the same company. Click here for more detail and ordering information.
The Top 500 Guide print edition sells for $65 for a single copy plus $9.95 for shipping and handling. To order, click here.
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