E-Commerce: Facts & Figures

World 

Business-to-business e-commerce is expected to increase dramatically from $336 million in 2000 to $ 6.3 trillion in 2005.

Commercial use of the Internet by companies is doubling every year.

In the USA the number of small businesses engaged in e commerce will rise from 400,000 in 1998 to 2.8 million in 2003.

The European business-to-business market will increase to $ 1.27 trillion in 2004.

According to a new report, poor customer service and site functionality could cost online retailers up to $ 6 billion in lost sales every year. Apparently 39% of attempts to buy online end in failure. 56% of search attempts also end in failure.

By 2004 online sales could top $ 184 billion. In addition the Internet could affect approximately $ 500 billion of sales offline.

In 2002 10 million American teenagers will make an online purchase.

E-commerce has made its mark in America. Most Americans now recognise e-brands.

55% of online retailers made a profit in 2001.

81% of online shoppers say that a clear picture of the product is very important to their purchase.

64% of online shoppers have not completed an online purchase due to difficulty in loading pages or completing transactions.

Online auction sales will account for 25 percent of total online retail sales in the US by 2007, according to Forrester Research.

Total online auction sales will rise from $13 billion in 2002 to $54 billion in 2007, according to Forrester.

Only 18 percent of online North American households made an auction purchase in 2001; but that figure is expected to rise to 21 percent by year-end 2002.

ZDNet reports that the Indian Business-to-consumer market is expected to grow from $31 million in 2001 to $287.2 million in 2006.

IDC estimates that the Indian Business-to-consumer market will be worth between $45.5 million and $51.7 million in 2002.

eMarketer reports that US ecommerce sales of flowers, cards and gifts, will reach $5.3 billion by 2007.

US ecommerce sales of flowers, cards and gifts totalled $950 million in 2002, according to Forrester

Around 56 percent of Internet users in Europe will shop online by 2007, according to a new forecast by Jupiter Research

By the end of 2001, 36 million consumers in Europe had shopped online, representing 30 percent of the European online population and nine percent of the total European population. 

Net-influenced sales in Europe will reach EUR172.4 billion ($169.2 billion) in 2007, according to a new Forrester Research forecast.


UK

According to the Office for National Statistics, online sales in the non-financial sector reached £ 18.4 billion in 2001.

Business-to-business sales account for £ 11.8 billion with business-to-consumer sales accounting for £ 6.6 billion.

Business-to-business sales rose 36% from the year 2000 whilst business-to-consumer sales rose by 53% in the same period.

81% of online orders to businesses in the UK came from customers within the UK.

The UK has the highest browse-to-purchase ratio of all European countries. 64% of Internet users browsed before they purchased a product online.

In 2001 62% of the sales online were for physical products. 35% of online sales relate to the provision of services. The remaining 3% were online orders for digital products.

Male surfers in the UK are more likely to visit an e-commerce site than men in Germany, France or even the USA.

The most popular purchases online are: books 10%, cds and music 9%, air flights 8%, computer components 6%.

The BBC reports that a third of all online sales are made between the hours of 6pm and 9am. In addition these late night consumers spend an average of £1.60 more than daytime consumers.

27% of the population are likely to purchase any nature of goods over the Internet in the next twelve months.

39% of people consider the main advantage of shopping online to be the convenience involved. This compares with 36% of people whom consider the time saving factor to be the main advantage. Other advantages are less queuing 31%, ease of finding information 24%, cheaper products 18%.

Perceived disadvantages of shopping online include the threat of credit card fraud, the act of giving out personal information, the inability to see what you are purchasing, the unsolicited spam that may come later and the problems associated with sending back unwanted items.

People that dwelled on the disadvantages would be encouraged to shop online if goods were cheaper and security was improved. (This seems to be more a problem of perception than reality. More information needs to be provided to enable these individuals to be more confident about online shopping.)

Net-influenced sales in the UK are expected to total EUR38 billion ($37 billion) by 2007, while sales in France are likely to reach EUR23 billion ($22 billion).

More than three-quarters of retailers in the UK are adopting ebusiness technologies, according to the study. 

The study found that 77 percent of companies in the UK are adopting ecommerce technologies, while 71 percent of businesses use external mail and 53 percent have an active website.