The study, conducted by Forrester Research, has shown that 53 percent of the total retail sales in the US will be influenced by e-commerce as consumers increasingly use the internet to explore products before purchasing. The same research has unveiled that 82 percent of the US online consumers are satisfied with buying experiences that began and ended in a store. Nevertheless, the satisfaction rate diminishes to 61 percent for consumers who began their research online and purchased in a store.
The main categories that dominate online retail are apparel, footwear and accessories followed by consumer electronics, consumer hardware, software, and peripherals. These categories account for more than 40 percent of the total online retail sales in the US.
As a result of increased online tenure, improved access and greater promotion by retailers, number of European online buyers will jump from 141 million in 2009 to 190 million by 2014, while the average spend per online shopper will climb from EUR 483 in 2009 to EUR 601 in 2014.
The forecast for the European Union encompasses 17 Western European nations and includes a country-by-country breakdown of online retail across the seven largest markets: France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, and the UK.
Every day we send out a free e-mail with the most important headlines of the last 24 hours.
Subscribe now