Copyright © 2007 Rugs Direct
Each year Internet Retailer magazine publishes a comprehensive guide to the top 500 online retailers in terms of sales volume. It's currently a $135-BILLION industry! The 2007 guide was just released, along with some interesting information about how the world of e-commerce is changing.
Some interesting facts taken from Internet Retailer's website:
Sales Power: While there are easily tens of thousands of retail web sites operating in the U.S., the Top 500 e-retailers in 2006 accounted for 61% of all online sales.
Growth Engine: As a group, the Top 500 grew their online sales by 21% in 2006 and accounted for a total of $83.6 billion of the nation's $136.2 billion of retail web sales.
Online Sales by Industry: A total of 145 (or 29%) the Top 500 e-retail businesses in the U.S are owned by store-based retail chains, 89 (or 18%) by catalog and direct-marketing firms, 42 (or 8%) by consumer branded manufacturers and 224 (or 45%) by the so-called pure plays or web-only retailers. Because they control an even larger share of the biggest sites, retail chains accounted for 41% of online sales reported by the Top 500 in 2006, catalogers 14%, manufacturers 14% and pure plays 31%.
Online Growth by Industry: Of the 500 e-retailers ranked in the Top 500 Guide, retail chains and web-only merchants grew their online sales faster than anyone else, achieving growth rates of 23.4% and 23.6% respectively. By comparison, catalogers in the Top 500 grew their e-retail sales by 21.2%% and consumer branded manufacturers by only 9.1%.
The Big vs. the Small: In 2006, the fastest growing retail web sites in the U.S. were found in the second tier of the Top 500 e-retailers. Thirty-three of the 50 fastest growing e-retail sites consisted of e-retailers which were ranked between 251 and 500 overall. As a result, the Top 100 e-retail sites—though still dominant as a group—saw their share of total Top 500 sales decline from 87% in 2005 to 86% in 2006.
The $1 Billion Group: In 2006, fully 17 companies recorded online retail sales of $1 billion or more compared to just 14 the prior year.
Everything Sells Online: Fully 12 of the 14 merchandising categories tracked in the Top 500 registered double-digit growth rate in 2006, and the fastest growth rate coming from the hardware/home improvement sector, which expanded online sales by 42%.
Winners & Losers: In percentage terms, Lumber Liquidators achieved the best e-retail sales growth among the Top 500 with a 400% gain. Meanwhile eCOST.com turned in the worst performance with a decline of 41% in online sales. While Hardware/Home Improvement sector grew fastest online with a 42% growth rate in 2006, the runner-up was not far behind. The merchants in the largest category (in terms of numbers of merchants) in the Top 500 Guide—apparel/accessories—continued to show that shoppers have no qualms with buying fashions online. Combined 2006 web sales for this group rose by 41% to almost $10 billion. Conversely, only one category—sporting goods—experienced a decline in online sales in 2006, reporting an 8% drop from 2005. This decline, however, was the result of certain sporting goods retailers being reassigned to other categories as a result of acquisitions.
Growing Executive Base: The 2007 Edition of the Top 500 Guide provides contact information on 1,643 executives in the e-retailing industry, 11% more than the prior year's Guide.
Rugs Direct is ranked at number 274. Proudly we are still the #1 online specialty retailer of area rugs, thereby fully living up to our claim of being "The Nation's Leading Source for Area Rugs."
You can learn more about Internet Retailer's rankings, or even order your own copy if you like, by clicking here.
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