The Commerce Dept.’s e-retail figures confirm everyone else’s

IRCE 2008 Conference Multi-Media CD-ROM

Consumers spent $8.68 billion online in the fourth quarter of last year, the Census Bureau of the Department of Commerce reports. That amount was 67.1% over fourth quarter sales in 1999 and up 35.9% over third quarter 2000’s $6.39 billion. The bureau estimates that total retail sales for the fourth quarter of 2000 were $856.2 billion, an increase of 4.2% from the same quarter a year ago and up 5.43% from the third quarter of 2000.

Fourth quarter sales represent the first time that online sales have exceeded 1% of all retail sales as defined by the Commerce Department. Online sales in the third quarter were 0.8% of retail sales. They represented 0.6% in the fourth quarter of 1999.

Total e-commerce sales for 2000 were estimated at $25.8 billion while total retail sales for 2000 were estimated at $3.23 trillion. E-commerce sales in 2000 accounted for 0.8% of total sales. The Commerce Department includes auto sales and restaurants/cafeterias/drinking establishments in its figures. Annual retail sales without those categories—which consumers generally don’t buy over the Internet—equal about $2.25 trillion. In that case, online sales in 2000 accounted for about 1.15% of all retail sales. The Department of Commerce figures are close to the results of surveys by private researchers. Most of those researchers, however, put the growth from 1999 at about 100%.