Leading into the ever important holiday shopping season, the U.S. Department of Commerce released U.S. retail e-commerce sales estimates for the third quarter of 2011. The estimated $48.2 billion in total retail e-commerce sales was an increase of 13.7% over the same period in 2010.
Overall retail sales were also up 8.2% over 2010 to $1.1 trillion. 2010 third quarter e-commerce sales accounted for 4.6% of total retail sales. This represented a slight increase over the 4.4% increase seen in the third quarter of 2010. However, according to Andrew Lipsman, senior director of industry analysis at comScore, a digital business analytics company, the 4.6% increase is a soft number as it includes food, gas and automotive purchases. “If you take out food, gas and auto from the calculation, the increase is in the 8% to 9% range now,” he said.
“There was a little bit of relative softness in this quarter given the market volatility,” Lipsman said. “As of now, there seems to be only minor pullback and Q4 is looking pretty strong.”
The Census Bureau e-commerce sales estimates for the third quarter of 2011 are based on approximately 12,500 retail firms whose sales are weighted and benchmarked to represent the complete universe of more than 2 million retail firms, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce.
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