The Growth of E-Commerce 

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Summaries of U.S. E-Commerce Statistics. 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005

U.S. retail sales from the 4th quarter 1999 through the last quarter. 

Foreign data 

Tables with detailed data on e-commerce for U.S. Manufacturing Shipments, Merchant Wholesale Trade Sales (Total, E-commerce and EDI), Selected Services Revenue, Retail Trade Sales, Electronic Shopping and Mail-Order Houses, and U.S. Manufacturers' Sales branched and Office Sales are available at the URL http://www.census.gov/eos/www/2003tables.html  

Retail - U.S. 

The U.S. Census Bureau revised the data on e-commerce based on the 2005 Annual Retail Trade Survey. The first table below shows revised data. The second table below shows non-revised data for 1999 through 2006. 

According to the U.S. Census Bureau sales through e-commerce in the U.S.A. (except food services) amounted to $31,823 in the 2Q of 2007. Up 3.9 % from $30,624 in the 1Q of 2007. 

Census reports that retail e-commerce sales (B-to-C) in the United States reached $108,729 million ($109 billion) in 2006, up from $88,026 million in 2005, an increase of 23.5 percent, as shown in the table below. The U.S. Census has revised the 2006 sales data from $108,729 million to $114,623 million. 

The data reported for retail sale (e-commerce as well as total) do NOT include food services. 

During the fourth quarter of 2006 Census reported retail e-commerce sales in the U.S. of $33,854 million ($34 billion), up from $25,608 million ($26 billion) during the third quarter, an increase of 32.2 percent, showing an increasing e-commerce during the end of the year. 

E-commerce sales accounted for 3.27 percent of total sales in the fourth quarter of 2006, down from 2.58 percent in the third quarter of 2006. The ratio between e-commerce and total sales increases with .30 percentage points annually and is expected to reach 4.50 percent at the end of 2012. 

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, February 16, 2007.
Excludes food services.  

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). 

Source: "Business-to-Consumer E-Commerce Statistics", a presentation at an OECD workshop in Berlin, Germany, March 13-14, 2001.

Some growth values are shown in the chart below. 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 chart by Bertil C. Lindberg 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. Arthur Andersen Consulting, Chicago, Illinois (www.arthurandersen.com) estimates e-commerce sales in Western Europe at $430 billion in 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.  

Statistics Canada reports that the total value of customer orders received over the internet, with or without on-line payment, amounted to Can. $7.2 billion in 2000, up 73,4% from Can $4.2 billion in 1999. Only 6% of businesses reported selling goods and services on-line in 2000, down from 10% in 1999. E-commerce generated only 0.4% of total operating revenue in 2000, up from 0.2% in 1999. Twenty percent of sales were B2C. More information is available at www.statcan.ca/Daily/English/010403/d010403a.htm.  

The British Office for National Statistics (ONS) published its first survey of e-commerce on May 15, 2001. Not all business sectors were covered. The financial and insurance sector has the highest values with 1.58 percent of total revenues over the Internet and 2.88 percent over all electronic networks. See www.statistics.gov.uk.  

The national statistical offices of Denmark (Danmarks Statistik), Finland (Statistics Finland), Norway (Statistisk sentralbyrå/Statistics Norway), and Sweden (Statistiska centralbyrån/Statistics Sweden) have issued a report entitled "Use of ICT (information and communications technologies) in Nordic enterprises 1999/2000." Unfortunately, the report lacks absolute values. It states only that eight (8) percent of Finnish enterprise, seven (7) percent of Swedish, and five (5) percent of Danish and Norwegian enterprises had at least two(2) percent of their total turnover via the Internet in 1999.  

Electronic commerce relies on the transportation of information and goods electrically. One of the measurable features is the movement of data over the Internet, its traffic. Between 1991 and 1994 the traffic over NSFNET, the original Internet backbone network, operated by the U. S. National Science Foundation; grew at an annual rate of 100 percent measured in number of bits/packets. Source: Merit Network, Inc., Ann Arbor, Michigan. 

The U.S. Congressional Research Service makes Internet and E-Commerce Statistics: What They Mean and Where to Find them on the Web available at www.ncseonline.org/nle/crsreports/science/st-36.cfm. 

Bertil C. Lindberg can supply you with more detailed statistics on demand. 

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Last revised October 4, 2007.
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