Internet Retail Growth Continues!

"... retailers should be worrying about a real long-term threat: the Internet. The 1990s-vintage boast that e-tailers would destroy bricks-and-mortar retailers all but disappeared after the NASDAQ went bust in 2001. But e-commerce has quietly been growing at a rate far higher than that of the overall economy. For the past four years, online retail sales have grown at an annual rate of more than 20 percent. In 2007, such sales, excluding travel, rose 21 percent to $175 billion, accounting for 7 percent of total retail sales. "Online retail is growing a heck of a lot faster than the rest of the pie," says Sucharita Mulpuru, an analyst at Forrester Research. Last year online sales accounted for 45 percent of computer hardware, software and peripheral sales, 19 percent of toys and videogames, and 19 percent of baby products. In the coming years, retailers, who are integrating online sales into their business models, simply won't need the same amount of acreage."

Another report shows how the Internet continues to grow. We have been observing this steady growth for years and talking about what it means to businesses, large and small. This article reflects the impact that this changing aspect of our world will have on real estate in the future.

I attended a real estate presentation years ago where the presenter talked about how the Internet was going to "kill" shopping malls. That warning has proved to be premature, but the speaker was certainly on the right track!

What does this mean to those of us involved in Internet Marketing? It means that the future is bright! The work that we are doing is more and more relevant to the economy, and the potential rewards are greater than ever! Stay current with the industry best practices through our free internet marketing class, offered twice monthly in downtown Houston.