New York–The U.S. economy may be down, but online shopping is up, according to a recent report from eMarketer, an e-business statistics provider. The report, which aggregates and analyzes data from more than 100 research organizations, projects that U.S. business-to-consumer e-commerce revenue will soar to $156 billion by 2005 from $38.3 billion in 2000.
Among the other findings, the report concludes that click-and-mortar companies will dominate sales in 2001, as they did in 2000, when 33 of the top 50 Websites having multichannel operations. The study says that the online customer conversion rate improved to 2.9% in 2000, up from 1.9% in 1999, and it is projected to reach 3.5% next year. But the study also notes that 81% of U.S. consumers are “overwhelmingly” fearful about theft of credit-card data online. Despite these claims, the number of Americans shopping online is expected to more than double, from 64.1 million in 2000 to 130 million in 2005.