Online Shopping And Buying On The Rise

As the economy picks up steam, e-commerce appears to be picking up right along with it, a pair of recent reports show.

The Census Bureau of the U.S. Department of Commerce released its estimate of retail e-commerce sales for the first quarter of this year. It shows a 28% increase over the first quarter of 2003. E-commerce also made gains on standard retail. E-commerce sales in the first quarter of 2004 accounted for 1.9% of total retail sales, up from 1.6% for the same period in 2003.

Additionally, DoubleClick Inc. in New York, a provider of online advertising, e-mail and database marketing applications, released a report that said online shoppers are spending more time making their buying decisions, though orders made from on-site searches have increased. It also found that while shoppers put more items in online carts, they abandon them more often. DoubleClick based its findings on aggregate data from multi-channel marketers using its software.

Read more at TechTarget.