Online Retail Growth
Online sales are on track to hit $65 billion in 2004 and will continue to grow at an annual rate of 17 percent through 2008, when sales are projected to reach $117 billion, according to Internet research company Jupiter Research. E-commerce currently accounts for a mere 5 percent of overall retail sales in the United States. A recent report by Jupiter Research indicates that consumers are becoming more comfortable researching purchases online and then buying the goods in bricks-and-mortar stores. By 2008, nearly 30 percent of all purchases in bricks-and-mortar locations will have been researched online before purchase, according to the report.
