I’m more fascinated by the design of this chart.

Wow, amazing, I thought there would be more services than actual products.

Sandy
http://www.total-anonymity.cz.tc

Whoever wrote the introduction to this graphic is either blind or painstakingly stupid. E-commerce sales beat in-store purchases IN 10 OF THE 13 CATEGORIES! Yet, the author makes it seem as if the trend is going the other way. Sure, pharmaceuticals won out by a large margin (probably because of the industry’s aggressively selfish campaign of scaring the sick from, god forbid, buying a cheaper generic alternative online) but that’s where it ends.

Pay attention Permuto. Pay attention.

There’s a reason we get so much spam. Unfortunately, it works.

Nice graphic! If you’re looking for best practices to track offline
conversions from your website and online marketing campaigns, check out Avinash Kaushik’s post from Occam’s Razor http://bit.ly/bPtiwB

this is really interesting. it appears that online sales are a huge percent of all sales.

They are buying electronic cigarettes, don’t forget those.

Where is the source exactly? This infographic is obviously not revealing why e-commerce is larger in areas. It does not explain where the receipts are coming from (the source of this data).

You have to read the disclaimer at the bottom “e-commerce sales are comprised of catalog, telephone and online sales”. Customers and category bought are so different amoung those channels it hardly make any sense. It might explain why clothes, wine (and magazine?) are bought in the “online” channel. In any case, the title is misleading: this is more a direct channel infographic than an online/ecommerce analysis. Does the census bureau provide a breakdown?

The weirdest thing about this is that ppl are buying computer hardware and software equally in stores and online. That sounds pretty suspicious to me. I’m supposed to believe that ppl buy electronics and office supplies overwhelmingly online but often go to brick and mortar for their software and computer? Just doesn’t suit common sense.

I have some problems with the data in this infographic.
The first one that I found “funny” was the sales of Food, Beer and Wine. It seems to suggest that we spend more online than in bricks-and-mortar stores. I found this very hard to believe.
Searching for some data, one of the Google links was not for food, but Nutritional Supplements. $23 Billion per year in the US. The chart claims sales of all forms of Drugs and Health Aids to be about $55 Billion. That doesn’t make sense either … surely tylenol sells more than Vitamin C?

Back to food. I look at the data from the US Census Bureau. 2007 … Food and Beverage Stores (Bricks and Mortar) had sales of $559 Billion in 2007, but this chart suggest total sales of about $4 Billion (online and in-store).

Whatever this chart represents, it’s not what you would be inclined to assume it represents. May be some details as to what, exactly, is being measured here would help, but in the absence of that, it looks bogus to me.

On line shopping is also a way to look around and find out what is available, with out driveing to a dozen different locations. You don’t have to fight the crowd, or hunt for a parking place, or try to remember where you parked the car. There are alot of murchants, that care about their customers, and try just as hard to make them satisfied with their shopping experience as some one with a store on main street. They have a passion about helping others even if there is no face to face contact. I think online shopping is a way to free up traffic and do your part to cut down on pollution. It should be called Green Shopping!

Americans do not buy 57% of their food, beer and wine online.

I would be shocked if it were over 5%.

And not linking to the “study by the US Census Bureau” is sketchy.

Clothing category is plain wrong. It should be about 7% of total apparel (including footwear, accessories) sales online, not 65.9%. Books and Electronics are abotu right, although higher than I expected by about 5%. This I can believe, as my numbers are a year old.

Clothing, on the other hand, can’t grow from 7% to 66% in a year. It is still the most difficult item to be sold online – no fitting room, no touch and feel. However, since the year before, in absolute dollar volume, clothing is the largest eCommerce category (abotu $26bn annual volume, wiht computers being next, about $20bn annually)

I would add… catalogue sales of clothing should be around 9% of total clothing retail

sorry to monopolize the comments. Just noticed where the discrepancy comes from: the total apparel sales in the US are about $250-300bn. Saying this, for most larger clothing retailers, their online clothing store is their largest store compared to their brick-and-mortar shops, in sales.

The chart is wrong. I would bet my last dime that 2/3 of clothing sales are NOT online. Same goes for furniture and, especially, food and drink.

I have a feeling that in-store sales are vastly, vastly underreported.

@Laura Kinsale

Dell. Nearly 100% of Dell’s sales count as online.

This is very interesting, specially the fact that some things are completely online sales now, like music.

This is very surprise that people are buying clothes almost the same amount as those computer and electronic stuff. Hmm.. Really interesting

This graphic is lovely – and grossly inaccurate. It shows about $300B in purchases. According the the U S Bureau of Labor Statistics, Americans spent about $6T (that’s trillion, folks) in 2007. http://www.bls.gov/cex/csxann07.pdf For instance, as many have already noted, food purchases are immensely weighted toward in-store: think of Kroger, Wal-mart, and McDonalds alone. No one’s buying a head of lettuce or a Big Mac online.

What I’m fascinated by is the “other merchandise” category. What counts as “Other”? Also, like Cam, I’m surprised that the amount of clothing that’s being purchased online is greater than the amount being purchased in-store. Is that after returns? I’m always leery about buying clothes because they may not fit correctly, and I find returns a hassle. I’m surprised that others apparently do not feel the same way.

I would have thought adult-rated fare would be in there

Maybe thats under video…

I believe that these statistics are from Table 1022: Electronics Shopping and Mail-Order Houses–Total and E-Commerce Sales.

This table has a note: “Represents NAICS code 454110, which comprises establishments primarily engaged in retailing all types of merchandise using non store means, such as catalogs, toll free telephone numbers, or electronic media, such as interactive television or computer. ”

Therefore, this doesn’t represent what % of all sales happen on-line, it represents what % of non-store retailing occurs on-line. On-line sales as a % of all retail sales is calculated in Table 1021 at the source link, it shows e-commerce as 3.2% of all sales.

It is a beautiful graphic, though.

This graph should read e-commerce as a % of total electronic shopping & mail order sales ( ie: total catalog, telephone and online sales ). It excludes in-store sales completely in its calculations. Online sales are only about 6% of total retail sales (excluding gas, transportation and pharmaceuticals). Less than 1% of food & liquor is purchased online.

We do not buy the majority of our food and drink on line, I would be surprised to find it to be 10%. Who in their right mind goes to there keyboard to order wine or beer.

I do beleive e-sales are going to climb sharply. with the price of gas and riseing unemployment, everyone working more hours trying to make ends meet. Dad trying hard to make it to the little league game, people are stressed out and all they want to do is go home. Then out comes the laptop and off to e-bay they go. OH,YA things are looking up for on line shoping.

Whoever prepared the chart misinterpreted U.S. Department of Commerce/Bureau of the Census data. Two data points come into play. At http://www.census.gov/eos/www/ebusiness614.htm one finds two tables (5 & 6) related to e-commerce. Table 5 puts total retail sales in Sporting goods, hobby, book, and music stores (NAICS code 451) at $86,906 million ($86.9 billion) of which $1,686 million ($1.68 billion) is by e-commerce. The same Table 5 puts total retail sales in Electronic shopping and mail-order houses (NAICS code 4541) at $199,199 million ($19.9 billion) of which $88,915 million ($8.89 billion) is by e-commerce.
The next table (Table 6) takes the $199,199 million ($19.9 billion) and separates the e-commerce from mail order house sales. In my area of expertise (sporting goods), one would read the data as “58.2% of all purchases of sporting goods in NAICS code 4541 (Electronic shopping and mail-order houses) were done by e-commerce. The graph above is more descriptive of how e-commerce is replacing mail order catalogs for non-store purchases.
Our most recent research (2008) at the National Sporting Goods Association, of which I am research director, indicates that 8.1% of sports equipment and 8.0% of sports and athletic footwear are purchased by e-commerce. It has been holding at about the 8% level the past three years.

A friend sent this post to me and I was completely shocked, as many of the other readers have been. Thanks to the links to the data, I did a little digging. The data they used for this chart is actually based solely on companies that do not have established retail outlets. According to the census bureau this “comprises establishments primarily engaged in retailing all types of merchandise using nonstore means, such as catalogs, toll-free telephone numbers, or electronic media, such as interactive television or computer.” So essentially this doesn’t compare e-commerce sales to brick and mortar sales at all, but rather e-commerce to catalog, telephone and tv sales. If you look at the data for furniture provided by the census bureau, it’s actually around 7% of all furniture sales is through ecommerce. same for clothing. hope this helps.

Almost all chain stores have web sites now, so to compare online to brick and morter leaves a gray area. Alot of the clothing that is sold online is sold by Macys and other big brand stores. It has never been so easy to do your Christmas shopping, people are doing it on their lunch breaks. Green Shopping is here to stay!

I bet that clothing includes items such as handbags and shoes. (And if they are at the luxury end of the spectrum they probably have a disproportionately high dollar value – I’m thinking of those “designer handbags for less” type sites) I wouldn’t underestimate the power of Zappos either. Shoes are probably the hardest thing to buy online but Zappos’ success is undeniable thanks to their selection, amazingly efficient logistics and customer service.

@Jeffk
I totally agree.

Great visual. Questionable data. Since when is the Census taker the authority in e-commerce? And it has been 10 years since the last census.

“I thought there would be more services than actual products.”

Definitely

Two, three more years and we don’t have to pay to buy something. Seller pay us

I like the design!
does anybody know what kind of program (if any) they used to represent the data?

i only buy clothing and furniture..
sometimes snacks from foreign places that i can’t get at a grocery store..

Shopping has certainly come a long way online. It’s now just too easy and convenient for people not to use it. This info really puts online shopping into perspective.

I have found that I can purchase anything on-line including, Cars, Trucks, Horse Trailers. Their is no limit to what you can do on-line.
The problems of every day life can be made easier with some fore thought as to your needs and once decided upon can be handled instantly, or close to.
personal security and personal safety can be addressed in much the same manner, with information and product readily available with the click of a mouse.
Brick and mortar is not obsolete, there are just times when you need to shop from home or work, or on-line just because you can.

Almost all chain stores have web sites now, so to compare online to brick and morter leaves a gray area. Alot of the clothing that is sold online is sold by Macys and other big brand stores. It has never been so easy to do your Christmas shopping, people are doing it on their lunch breaks. Green Shopping is here to stay!

I’m glad reading your articles. They are written very nice