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Facts About America's Top 500 E-Retailers
By any measure, the 500 largest e-retailers in the U.S. that are ranked and profiled in detail in the Top 500 Guide, are the trailblazers of the $166-billion web-based retailing industry. Understanding them and how they achieved their leadership position provides a valuable lesson to all e-retailers on how to succeed in this fast growing segment of the retailing industry. To get a better idea of their power and scope as a group, here are some summary facts of the 500 e-retailers ranked in the Top 500 Guide:
Growth Engine: As a group, the Top 500 grew their online sales by 21.6% in 2007 and accounted for a total of $101.7 billion of the nation's $166 billion in total retail sales.
Online Sales by Industry: A total of 148 (or 30%) of the Top 500 e-retail businesses in the U.S are owned by store-based retail chains, 82 (or 16%) by catalog and direct-marketing firms, 51 (or 10%) by consumer branded manufacturers and 219 (or 44%) by web-only retailers. Because they control an even larger share of the biggest sites, retail chains accounted for 39.9% of online sales reported by the Top 500 in 2007, catalogers 15.5%, manufacturers 13.7% and pure plays 30.9%.
Online Growth by Industry: Of the 500 e-retailers ranked in the Top 500 Guide, catalogers and web-only merchants grew their online sales faster than anyone else, achieving growth rates of 30.8% and 22.2%, respectively. By comparison, consumer brand manufacturers in the Top 500 grew their e-retail sales by 21.7% and chain retailers by 18.4%.
The $1 Billion Group: In 2007, fully 21 companies recorded online retail sales of $1 billion or more compared to just 17 the prior year.
Everything Sells Online: All 14 merchandising categories tracked in the Top 500 registered double-digit growth in 2007, with the fastest growth rate coming from the specialty/non-apparel segment, which expanded online sales by 47%.
Winners & Losers: In percentage terms, Green Mountain Coffee Roasters achieved the best e-retail sales growth among the Top 500 with a 250% gain. Meanwhile Palm Inc. turned in the worst performance with a decline of 45% in online sales. While the specialty/non-apparel segment sector grew fastest online with a 47% growth rate in 2007, the runner-up was not far behind. Online jewelers grew their combined sales by 36% to just over $1 billion from $772 million in 2007. The merchants in the largest category (in terms of numbers of merchants) in the Top 500 Guide—apparel/accessories—continued to show that shoppers have no qualms with buying fashions online. Combined 2007 web sales for this group rose by 24% to $12.4 billion.
Growing Executive Base: The 2008 Edition of the Top 500 Guide provides contact information on 1,700 executives in the e-retailing industry, 3% more than the prior year's Guide.
Search Engine Marketing: Amazon.com dominated the rankings for retailers in natural search engine marketing, appearing first in six of 20 categories. Overstock.com placed a distant second with three. In pay-per-click search marketing, retailers controlled 85% of the top 60 spots. Sears.com and Target.com each held four of the top paid placements.
Solution Providers: Omniture Inc. was the most named e-commerce technology provider across multiple categories in the vendor listings of the Top 500 Guide. Omniture topped the vendor list with 218 mentions and was followed by GSI Commerce Inc. with 196, Commission Junction Inc. at 165, Google at 129 and Coremetrics at 124.