Today turned out to be an unusually interesting day for three reasons.
First, the U.S. Census Bureau released its latest E-Stats Report for FYE 2010 today, which revealed that online retail reached $169 billion for all of 2010. The Census Bureau data point does not include online auctions or marketplaces. If you add in eBay’s 2010 U.S. Gross Merchandise Volume (GMV) of $20.4 billion, total online retail could be estimated at approximately $190 billion for FYE 2010. The E-Stats Report also includes preliminary estimates for online retail in 2011 of approximately $194.3 billion. Once again, if you add eBay’s 2011 GMV of $22.8 billion, total online retail could be estimated at approximately $217 billion for FYE 2011.
Second, today comScore released Q1 online retail statistics, which say that online spending in the U.S. reached $44.3 billion (excluding auctions), an increase of 17% over last year. Interestingly, comScore will be hosting a free webinar to review their data in detail—including recent trends toward “showrooming” (in which a buyer goes to a bricks-and-mortar store to compare different items, then leaves the store and purchases online to avoid sales tax).
Finally, today Internet Retailer released their annual Top 500 Guide. As usual, Amazon tops the list with $48 billion in sales.
An interesting data point in the annual ranking includes the dramatic range in revenue from the top of the list to the bottom. At number 500 is Summit Sports with just under $15 million (0.00024% of eBay’s sales volume).
We have always thought it notable that eBay is not included in this list. We understand that as a marketplace operator, they are not the direct retailer; rather, they aggregate millions of sellers under one roof. However, if eBay were included on the list, based upon only their marketplace and GSI business units (excluding PayPal), they would beat even Amazon with $62 billion in GMV in 2011 (worldwide).
There are a lot of conclusions that could be drawn from this, but we’ll save those discussions for another post at a later date.