World Wrestling muscles up bigger annual web sales

World Wrestling Entertainment Inc. is finding a steady stream of online customers for its licensed apparel and other gear at WWE.Shop.com.

In its just filed annual report, World Wrestling, No. 318 in the Internet Retailer Top 500 Guide to Retail Web Sites, posted total web sales of $12.1 million for the 2006 fiscal year, up 169% from $4.5 million in fiscal 2005.

“We experienced significant growth in the current year as the number of orders processed increased by approximately 140% compared with the number of orders in fiscal 2005,” the company says.

Overall the web represented 3% of total 2006 sales of $400.1 million vs. 1% of total sales of $366.4 million in FY 2005. World Wrestling attracted more than 11.6 million monthly unique visitors worldwide with an audience in excess of 28.2 million total visits per month in FY 2006. It generated an average of 343 million page views per month.