Online retail’s growth rate is expected to continue charging ahead of retail at large in 2003. Forrester Research Inc. forecasts online sales will grow at least 25% this year over last year, compared with the National Retail Federation’s most recent forecast of 3.8% growth over last year for all of retail.
Online retail sales in the first quarter already have shown strong growth, gaining 20% over last year to reach $24 billion. Forrester predicts e-retail will sustain the pace through the year for three primary reasons. Nearly 7 million new U.S. households are expected to join the ranks of online shoppers in 2003, while both new and existing online shoppers will extend their shopping on the web into new categories they haven’t previously tried, such as home goods and apparel.
Perhaps most importantly, deals offered by merchants to online shoppers are likely to keep them coming back and to incentivize them to shift more of their retail spending online. Example of online retail promotions in the first quarter included popular four-hour sales alerts at Buy.com and extensions of holiday shipping offers from eBags, according to Forrester.
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