Ecommerce Solutions
Recent Facts
The year 2002 was a dismal year for ebusinesses and ecommerce solutions in general. Suprising to many was the extent of turn around and expansion during the 2003 calendar year. Forrester Research, Jupiter Communications, CommerceNet ,Nielsen and other researchers have reported the following trends. The overall Internet economy will approach $200 billion in 2007, up from $50 billion today. 73% of Internet users use the Web for shopping in one way or another in a given month. The number of U.S. households on-line to rise from 14.7 million in 1996 to 45 million by the year 2003. The number of companies engaged in interbusiness chrome wire shelving ecommerce will rise from 111,000 in 1996 to 135,000 in 1997. Over 435,000 companies are expected to engaged by year 2003. Consumers rang up $530 million in on-line transactions in 1996 and will drive that up to $7.17 billion by the year 2000. There were 358.6 million purchases online in 2002, up 37 percent from 261.7 million orders in 2001. The composition of the Web is changing dramatically. One in four Web sites is now a retailing site, with the number to significantly rise in the near future. The travel industry has emerged as one of the fastest growing racking and shelving segments of the Internet. On-line spending for travel services will reach $1 billion by the end of this year almost 50 percent of the $2.3 billion that will be spent on-line this year and will continue to grow to the $6 billion mark by the year 2003.
Three non-technology segments will drive revenues from the Internet in the year 2003:
1) content;
2) financial services; and
3) consumer retail.
Improved security and the increasing number of households on the Web will drive consumer retail to $12 billion in 2003. Women shoppers spent approximately $368 million online in 1996. By 2003, this figure will grow to nearly $3.5 billion, based on the ever-increasing numbers of women going on-line. Nearly 5 million 18-to 24-year-olds are currently on-line, and will surge to 10 million by 2001. Of the 25 million young adults now in the United States, 22% are already on-line, and by 2003, more than a third of this group will be wired. Internet users over age 50 are just as active on-line as younger users, though with different interests. The icing, for those interested in commercial use of the Internet, is that users over 50 are both more affluent and more inclined to buy products on-line than their younger counterparts.