Figures for e-tail / sector growth 2003

We are currently doing an eCommerce market assessment for a large multi-category retailer looking at exactly this – category performance in 2003 and future forecasts.

We are using Forrester Research and Verdict reports as our main sources, plus IMRG and Hitwise already mentioned by Ashley. We are validating these against individual companies’ results to make our own assessment. I can’t share exact figures through a post in this forum as this is our client work, internal benchmarks and paid for market research (Forrester and Verdict would be pretty upset!), but we are happy to have a phone conversation – you can call me or my colleague Katy Gotch on 020 79613200.

In general terms, we have heard from a number of our contacts at large UK retailers with an eCommerce channel that they had a very good online Christmas. The online channel turnover now represents the equivalent of 10 to 20 stores for some larger retailers, which is no longer an insignificant part of the business.

So consumer eCommerce has reached a level where retailers with an existing transactional website are looking to expand again, perhaps for the first time since the first rush in 1999, and are expecting to push some serious sales through the online channel. However unlike 1999, this is more integrated with stores as part of an overall multi-channel strategy, with e.g. email being used to drive people back to store as well as to the website, and consumer behaviour observed on the website being used to inform overall marketing strategy.

It also means that eCommerce is now too big to ignore for retailers who are not yet online, so I look forward to some new launches in 2004/05!

I do have public figures for 2003 US eCommerce category growth from Shop.org 6.0. If anybody is interested in those I can post them here.

Obi

I'd be careful with definition of "online sales" - matter of fact is that many traditional retailers have successfully leveraged their stores with online presence by allowing customers to order online but collect in store – this is a great thing to have but in my view should not be counted as “online sales”, ie direct sales to customer. I’d also question whether call centre placed orders should be part of “online sales”. I have not got access to IMRG stats and I do not know if they take this into account but I know that ratio of above mentioned non-online components could be anything up to 90%.

That said my observation is that online traffic is on the up and the notion of e-commerce being critical to success is catching up starting from small companies who trade via ebay to old fashioned retailers.