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Friday June 11, 12:12
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eCommerce Growth Driven By Emerging Markets
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Online sales are tipped to jump by 27 per cent this year, to USD 144 billion, or 6.6 per cent of total retail sales, with Forrester Research and Shop.org observing a parallel 51 per cent growth in 2003, to USD 114 billion. Payments at the Wells Fargo Global Payment Gateway, the payments processor for PayPal, also totaled USD 3.8 billion in value in Q1 2004 alone, after experiencing 100 per cent growth in 2002 to 2003, when Wells’ international merchant payments totaled almost USD 1 billion. Emerging e-payment markets, as identified by Wells, include education, government, insurance and municipal payment services.
Visa USA, for instance, reports eCommerce transactions in the education sector to have grown by 84.47 per cent in 2002-03, from USD 1.5 billion, to USD 2.8 billion. Government-related online transactions grew by 101 per cent in the same period, from USD 1 billion, to USD 2.8 billion, while e-payments in the insurance sector rose by 84.92 per cent, from USD 705 million, to USD 1.3 billion. In 2003, two-thirds of e-tailers also achieved profitability, particularly those that built synergies in their online and physical world businesses, with 24 per cent of purchases at physical stores, influenced by the ability to browse online.
Forrester analyst, Carrie Johnson, has noted that new online shopping categories grow as consumers buy more online, but researcher, Britt Beemer, of America’s Research Group, observes that although 60 per cent of US consumers can shop online, only 20 per cent did so in the 2003 holiday season. Despite this, a joint survey by Forrester Research and Shop.org shows e-tailers to be improving their operating margins, while highlighting order fulfillment as a particular issue. Shop.org accordingly concluded e-tailers to have “found the right balance between selling a product, acquiring and retaining customers”.
(Business Wire)
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