By the Stats: Online Sales Continue to Climb

Online retail sales (excluding travel) rose 23.8 percent in 2004, to $89 billion. That represents 4.6 percent of total retail sales, according to The State of Retailing Online 8.0, an annual Shop.org study conducted by Forrester Research. In all, 137 retailers were polled for the study. Here’s what else Forrester found:

¥ $109.6 billion, expected amount of online retail sales (excluding travel) in 2005.

¥ 28 percent, average operating margins of online retailers in 2004, up from 21 percent in 2003.

¥ 32 percent, average operating margins for catalog-based online retailers, up from 28 percent in 2003.

Source: Shop.org and Forrester Research, www.forrester.com.