Government Puts 4Q Online Sales At $5.3 Billion
The Department of Commerce says online retail sales for the fourth quarter 1999 reached $5.3 billion, on the low end of analyst estimates placing the figure as high as $13 billion. The tally accounts for 0.64% of total retail sales, which the department pegged at $821.2 billion during the period.
The report is is the first official government estimate of retail e-commerce sales. Sales are estimated from the same sample the departments uses to estimate U.S. retail sales in the Monthly Retail Trade Survey. It randomly samples more than 12,000 retail operations whose sales are then weighted and benchmarked to represent the complete universe of more than 2 million retailers.
The commerce department plans to release quarterly reports of online retail sales. The next scheduled release for first quarter 2000 will be in May.
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