US Online Retail Sale will Reach at $250 Billion in 2014: Forrester

  Forrester research made a five year prediction of US e-commerce sales that will grow 10 percent through 2014. It further projected that online retail sales in the U.S. is going to touch $250 billion in 2014 which currently stands at $155 billion in 2009. Online retail sales went up to 11 percent last year, compared to 2.5 percent for all retail sales. In Europe, the online retail sales will grow from $93 million (68 million Euros) in 2009 to $156 million (114.5 million Euros) in 2014. Online retail sales does not include auto, travel and prescription drugs.

The other interesting US forecast includes:

• Computers, apparel, and consumer electronics registered more than 44 percent of online sales in 2009.
• 154 million people in the U.S. bought something online in 2009 which is 67 percent of the online population.
• E_commerce sales will grow 8 percent of all retail sales in the U.S. by 2014, which stands at 6 percent in 2009.

Forrester also forecasted that the combination of online and Web-influenced offline sales accounted for 42 percent of total retail sales and that percentage will go up to 53 percent by 2014, when the Web will be influencing $1.4 billion worth of in-store sales. Only 61 percent of consumers who shops from one store to the other store are satisfied with their buying experience, compared to 82 percent of people who buy online. Forrester researcher also thinks that retail industry needs to find out a way to attract online customers to their physical stores.