The Growth of E-Commerce 

Retail - U.S. 

U.S. e-commerce on the retail level continues to grow at a steady rate. The Census Bureau of the U. S. Department of Commerce reports that retail e-commerce sales (B-to-C) in the United States increased to $14,334 million ($14 billion) in the fourth quarter of 2002, up from $11,178 million in the fourth quarter of 2001, an increase of 28.2 percent, as shown in the table below. The increase of total retail e-commerce sales between the year of 2002 and that of 2001 is 26.8 percent. 

Compared to data for the third quarter of 2002, e-commerce sales for the fourth quarter of 2002 increased 29.6 percent and total sales 5.1 percent. 

E-commerce sales accounted for 1.65 percent of total sales in the fourth quarter of 2002, up from 1.34 percent in the third quarter of 2002. 

E-commerce sales are defined as sales of goods and services over the Internet, an extranet, Electronic Data Interchange (EDI), or other online systems. Payment may or may not be made online. This definition corresponds to business-to-consumer e-commerce. 

Source: United States Department of Commerce News, February 24, 2003.
Excludes food services.  

U.S. Retail Sales by type of channel in millions (e-commers) and billions (total sales) of U.S. dollars. 

The largest channels using electronic commerce are nonstore retailers with 75.2 percent, electronic shopping and mail-order houses with 74.7 percent and motor vehicles and parts dealers with 15.6 percent of all e-commerce sales. 

Business-to-Business - U.S. 

The Census Bureau of the U. S. Department of Commerce has published the following data regarding shipments by manufacturers and wholesalers, giving indications of business-to-business (B-to-B) trade. The ratio of e-commerce sales to total sales is 14 times higher for sales by manufacturers and six times higher for merchant wholesale, than for retail sales. 

Within merchant wholesale trade, 88.3 percent of e-commerce were conducted via electronic data interface (EDI) networks. The ratio of EDI to e-commerce ranges between 71.8 to 100 percent for different industry groups. Heavy users of EDI are drugs and druggists' sundries with 31.1 percent and motor vehicles, parts and supplies with 21.2 percent (that is the group that started EDI) followed by professional and commercial equipment and supplies with 10.6 percent of all EDI sales. 

Value of shipments in billions of U.S. dollars in 2000 and 1999. 

Detailed information is available at www.census.gov/eos/www/ebusiness614.htm. 

B-to-C and B-to-B - Global, U.S., and Other Areas - Other Sources 

Many official entities and private research firms have estimated recent and future levels of e-commerce sales. The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) have compiled a table of the value of B2C e-commerce in some 21 countries in the year 2000 (or latest available year). 

Forrester Research, Inc., Cambridge, Massachusetts (www.forrester.com) estimates a global level of $6,900 billion in 2004, and Jupiter Communications predicts a level of U.S. business-to-business e-commerce of $6,300 in 2005.  The International Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD, www.oecd.org), based in Paris, estimates global sales to reach $6,500 billion in 2002, a value so extreme that it is not included in the chart.

(B2B = business-to-business, and B2C = business-to-consumer)

The above chart shows the high values published by Forrester. It also shows low values published by the International Data Corporation (IDC), Farmingdale, Massachusetts, (www.idc.com), and by the U. S. Bureau of the Census. Each predicts doubling of sales each year in the future through 2003.

Forrester predicts e-commerce sales of about $1.5 trillion in Europe and the Asia-Pacific area in 2004 with some 93 percent being business-to-business.