Holiday Forecast Calls For E-Commerce Growth

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October 29, 2002 (3:11 PM EST)

Holiday Forecast Calls For E-Commerce Growth

Online holiday sales are projected to total $38.2 billion worldwide in 2002, up 48 percent year-over-year, according to analysts GartnerG2.

And Europeans will take the lead in holiday sales for the first time -- spending $15.77 billion, compared with North American spending of $15.66 billion, GartnerG2 said.

Meanwhile, another analyst report found that, despite the sluggish economy, consumer e-commerce was up 35 percent year-over-year for the third quarter of 2002.

Total consumer online sales for the quarter was $17.9 billion, up 2 percent from the second quarter, according to a report released Tuesday by comScore Networks. Year-to-date sales through Sept. 30 were $52.5 billion, up 41 percent over the same period in 2001 and nearly equal to the spending posted in all of 2001.

And growth is continuing strong through the fourth quarter, although growth in online travel -- the largest consumer e-commerce category -- is slowing. Sales of non-travel goods totaled $918 million during the week ending Oct. 6.

The industry will meet and possibly exceed comScore's earlier posted expectations of $13.8 billion in non-travel consumer sales online for the fourth quarter.

For travel, the year-over-year quarterly growth rate slipped from 87 percent in the first quarter to 40 percent in the fourth quarter, although growth rates for the travel sector continue to outpace growth rates in the non-travel sector.