Last September, Forrester Research estimated that online retail sales (defined as B2C sales of goods including auctions and travel) will grow to $329 billion in 2010 from $172 billion. Nielsen//NetRatings has provided a ranking of leading retail Web sites by total apparel purchases for the month of February.
“We track online purchases by collecting data from confirmation pages of those purchases – apparel is just one product category that we analyze,” said Heather Dougherty, senior retail analyst for Nielsen//NetRatings. She pointed out that even though multichannel retailers such as QVC and eBay are the most dominant, brick and mortar stores like Old Navy are moving up the rankings. “Cataloguers such as L.L. Bean are also now popping up in the rankings, because it’s such a nice marketing tool,” she added. “Shoppers will browse the catalogue, then come online to make their purchase.”
For complete coverage, see tomorrow’s WWD.