Request for Question Clarification by
vercingatorix-ga
on
29 Jul 2003 15:10 PDT
From what I can find out, the information you seek is not available in
any dependable form.
The U.S. Census Bureau collects retail sales data, the most recent of
which can be found here:
http://www.census.gov/eos/www/all2001tables.html. Check out the PDF
version. It's easy to understand and navigate. In an effort to get
more detailed data I called Nancy Piesto, one of the people who
organized the data. She told me that while Table 5 lists broad
retail-store groups, the Census Bureau supressed some data even for
the larger groups because of either uncertain sampling or weak
response that resulted in a small sample size. Thus, the subindustry
data would be highly unreliable.
More than 70% of e-commerce sales comes from nonstore retailers, which
really isn't a surprise. The problem is that most of these nonstore
retailers have not been officially contacted by the government for the
purpose of assembling statistical data. Table 6 is probably more
useful to you, in that it breaks down mail-order and electronic retail
data by industry group. But the groups are broad, and the Census
Bureau has no breakdown more detailed available.
This data was collected from a broad survey in 2001. Piesto told me
that this year's economic survey asks specifically about e-commerce
for the first time, and the 2002 data is likely to be far more
detailed. However, the 2002 data is not likely to be released until
next spring at the earliest.
I could probably find some public-domain data you could use, but it's
unlikely to be accurate. If the Census Bureau, with all its resources,
can't vouch for the accuracy of its data, I wouldn't trust anything
put together by most third parties.
There are groups out there that have done extensive, professional
surveys. Their data probably isn't as good as they represent it, but
you could probably get what you need from Jupiter Communications, IDC,
or perhaps Gartner. But these surveys would cost you serious money.
If details of available research would satisfy you, I'll be glad to
assemble a list of sources of the data you seek and post that as an
answer. But I take research seriously, and I'm not comfortable posting
any public-domain data. In addition, I'll caution you not to base any
business decisions on such data, unless you are confident in the
quality of the provider.
For other government data on e-commerce, check out
http://www.census.gov/eos/www/ebusiness614.htm.
V
