• DM News, Tuesday, January 17, 2006 10 AM

New data from Forrester Research says that e-commerce, including travel, accounted for an all-time high 7.7 percent of retail sales in 2005, or $172 billion. But Forrester executives said the upward trend by no means indicates that online sales will one day overtake catalog and storefront sales. In fact, operating margins tend to be lower for online merchants, according to the data. Catalog merchants reported an average margin of 32 percent last year, store-based 27 percent and Web-based only 21 percent. Ninety-two percent of catalogers reported a positive operating margin, versus 70 percent for store-based, and just 64 percent for online merchants. Even so, Forrester said the most successful retailers these days are now multi-channel. According to the data, e-commerce grew 22 percent last year, with projections of $198 billion in 2006 and $316 billion in 2010, which would bring online's projected share of sales to 13 percent.

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