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Web Marketing Breaking News
Q2 Online Sales Increase 15%
Posted on July 2, 2003
Q2 online sales grow 15% over year
ago, while orders grow 31%.
The growth rate in online retail
buying in the second quarter was down--or maybe not.
BizRate.com Inc. reports that dollars spent online at
retail sites in Q2 were up 15% from Q2 last year, which
would indicate slowing growth. At the same time, however,
orders were up 31%, which is higher growth than almost
any quarter in the last few years.
“This go-online-but-spend-less-per-order
phenomenon is symptomatic of the downward pressure of
price competition on the web, and the advent of smaller
transactions taking place online,” said Chuck
Davis, president and CEO of BizRate.com. “Shoppers
are using the online channel to price comparison shop
and save money, and we are beginning to see the effects.”
In the second quarter, consumers
spent $11.61 billion online, up 15% from $10.11 billion
in Q2 last year. In last year’s Q2, online sales
grew 28% from Q2 2001. Consumers placed 104.86 million
orders, up 31% from 80.06 million in Q2 last year. The
average order declined 12% to $111 from $126.
In a BizRate.com Online Research
Value Panel in May, 54% of online shoppers said they
were more deal-centric than last year when they shopped
online.
Davis says the lower average order
may be the result of the penetration of broadband. “As
broadband penetration continues, people are adopting
a ‘NOW’ attitude to shopping online, meaning
they will purchase small one-off buys instead of waiting
to fill an entire shopping cart full of goods,”
he says.
The top categories in terms of sales
volume in Q2 were computer hardware, at $2.24 billion,
electronics, at $1.96 billion, and entertainment, at
$1.90 billion. The strongest growth in Q2 came from
Gifts & Flowers, up 17.9%, Toys & Video Games,
up 10.6%, and Office Supplies up 8.6%.
BizRate reported the following online
sales by month, with growth over same month a year ago:
April: $3.77 billion, 11%
May: $3.98 billion, 15%
June: $3.86 billion, 19%.
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