• by Masha Geller , July 3, 2003

Here are some numbers to think about over the long holiday weekend.

Experts are saying that online advertising is staging a comeback. US Bancorp Piper Jaffray analyst Safa Rastchy said in a recent research note he expects this year's growth in online advertising to well exceed the 15% range, up from prior estimates of under 10%.

Gordon Hughes, head of American Business Media, an industry association that represents the interests of business magazines, websites and tradeshows, told the IAB Leadership Form attendees last week that ABM predicts a 20-30% growth for online B2B this year. "We see robust growth," he said.

Naturally, online advertising is ultimately about sales, so here's something else to keep in mind.

The second quarter of 2003 produced retail sales of $11.61 billion, a 15% increase over the same period in 2002 when $10.11 billion was spent, according to BizRate.com. This represents a slowing in sales growth compared to the previous year when the Q2 2002 online sales growth rate was 28%.

The top categories in terms of sales volume were computer hardware ($2.24 billion), electronics ($1.96 billion) and entertainment ($1.90 billion). The strongest growth in Q2 came from Gifts & Flowers (17.9%), Toys & Video Games (10.6%) and Office Supplies (8.6%) categories.

This deceleration in online sales growth is not due to fewer purchases taking place online but due to consumers spending less per order. Actual orders grew by 31% to 104.9 million unique transactions in Q2 2003. However, the average purchase amount has decreased by 12% to $111 in Q2 2003 compared to $126 in the same period last year.