It mightn't be an age-old mystery, but the question of just how much business is done on-line is at least a hardy perennial.
Certainly the release of the on-line retailing sales data in the US in recent times has helped confirm that on-line
is only a niche market in most areas, such as grocery and the like. On-line retail sales are about 2% of all retail sales
according to the US Bureau of Census.
But then again the official definitions leave out many of the market segments where on-line business, i.e. ecommerce,'has really
taken off. Ticketing, for example, and not just for airline travel. Ticketing for entertainment is now big business online and not yet
captured in the official data.
Still, that may be about to all change very soon with Visa sources telling your blogger that they are soon to begin publishing
an on-line index. Visa is, of course, in a very good position to publish an index of business activity on the web because credit-cards are still
the main way people pay for things on-line.
Indeed earlier this year Visa issued some stats for ecommerce both globally and down-under. For down-under at least Visa found
that there were some 4.35 million ecommerce transactions a month.
Head to the Visa down-under web-site, click on media and choose archived press releases for March April or May this year.
( I forget which month it is precisely).
www.visa.com.au
No comments:
Post a Comment