Retail Reality

Thanksgiving was yesterday. Black Friday is today. Cyber Monday is around the corner. It's official, the 2010 holiday retail shopping season has begun.

Here's a shopping statistic that will surprise most of us, especially those of us whose world revolves around everything online from social media to social shopping.

93% of all US retail sales occur in the real world.

Ninety-Three Percent.

Which, of course, means, only 7% of US retail sales occur online in the digital world.

Yes. The shopping trends clearly reveal online sales are growing in importance. But what is important today and important for the foreseeable future is offline sales occurring in a physical store.

This marketing wake-up call statisitic comes from Forrester Research ...

Comments

[Ken Honeywell]

Interesting and sobering. All those billions--but just a small fraction of all the billions. Nice piece.

[denise lee yohn]

thanks for the wake-up call, john! - denise lee yohn

[CFD Strategies]

Kudos to the social media and other online tools that are widely used in marketing different goods! The foreseen increase in retail sales via internet is very overwhelming. This could possibly be obtained in the future as more and more individuals are indulging in the most convenient way of processing their orders. This is such an advantage to many traders. And for consumers, they should do some background check regarding the trader's identity and credibility before transacting some deal. Remember, you'll be paying the bill through electronic cash recipients. There is no assurance if the trader is using some fraudulent account or using some corporate name without prior authorization. To do away from this unfortunate instance, always probe.

[gina]

Hm, do the "retail" totals include grocery sales? Gasoline? Restaurant? The fore-mentioned total a huge chunk of my expenditures, but clothes, shoes, electronics, books, gadgets and housewares - in other words, most everything possible - I usually purchase online.

[john moore (from Brand Autopsy)]

Gina ... "offline" retail sales include, but not limited to, the following categories:

Cars. Furniture. Electronics. Appliances. Computers. Building Materials. Department Stores. Gas/Fuel. Hardware. Grocery Stores. Beer/Wine/Liquor. Pharmacy. Clothing. Shoes. Jewelry. Sporting Goods. Books. General Merchandise. Warehouse Clubs. Office Supplies. Restaurants.

The retail sales pie is gargantuan. Really gargantuan. Online retail sales is a major component as a number alone ($173 BILLION). But the MUCH bigger picture for the foreseeable is sales in the offline/"physical" world.

[CFD]

This is an amazing statistic. I would have thought that given the size of companies like Amazon and ebay far more than 7% of retail sales would be online. These are really interesting statistics, thanks for sharing them.