US Online Retail Falls, Retail Falls More
In the first-ever quarterly decline year over year since 1999, retail electronic-commerce sales in the US declined by more than 5% in the fourth quarter.
The Census Bureau’s preliminary estimate puts retail e-commerce sales at $31.9 billion for the quarter, down 5.5% from $33.8 billion in 2007’s fourth quarter when adjusted for seasonal variations, trading-day differences, and moving holidays. And despite the fourth traditionally being the biggest retail quarter of the year, e-commerce fell by 5.7% from the bureau’s revised estimate of $33.9 billion in the third quarter.
The bureau’s survey does not include online travel services, financial brokers and dealers, and ticket-sales agencies.
However, the Census Bureau’s estimate is that adjusted overall retail sales fell by a much greater amount in the fourth quarter, 9.1%, to $938.1 billion from the $1.03 trillion of a year earlier.
Does this imply that, as recession deepens, buys move online to hunt up better deals?
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Filed under: Digital culture
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