Yesterday, the Department of Commerce released their Quarterly E-Commerce Report:
Latest Quarterly E-Commerce Report
The 2nd Quarter 2009 Retail E-Commerce Sales Report was released on August 17, 2009, and available as:
- Full 2Q 2009 Publication in HTML | PDF [99KB]
- Individual 2Q 2009 Tables available in HTML: Table 1 | Table 2 | Table 3 | Table 4
Individual 2Q 2009 Tables available as delimited text: Table 1 | Table 2 | Table 3 | Table 4
Cautious consumer spending had an impact on online sales in the second quarter.Online retail sales in the second quarter
were down 4.5% from Q2 last year, the Department of Commerce reports.
Sales in Q2 2009 were $30.8 billion compared to $32.2 billion a year
ago, on a basis that does not adjust for trading days or price changes.
On an adjusted basis, sales declined 4.4% to $32.4 billion from $33.9
billion a year earlier.
Editor's Note: Total
retail sales fell 10.7% on an
adjusted basis. However, almost all of that decline was the result of
falling gasoline prices and the pullback in auto sales. Factoring out
those two areas, the report states that retail sales fell 1.7% in Q2 vs. a year ago. The
Commerce Department reports a plus or minus factor of 2.1% in its
online sales estimate.