E-commerce: Winning the War

We’ve had to eliminate a few companies from the chart, because they simply do not break out Internet sales. For example, Blair Corp. feels its new Internet initiatives are too small to break out, and Lands’ End reports Internet sales annually only.

It’s a small sample of companies, and the last reported quarter as of press time does not include the all-important holiday selling season. But the numbers are real—not hype from market research firms with a vested interest in growing Internet sales, nor press releases from investment analysts or trade associations. Based on these data and conversations with other catalogers, I have drawn a number of conclusions about the Internet phenomenon.