Census Bureau reports on e-commerce

The Census Bureau of the Department of Commerce announced March 2 that the estimate of U.S. retail e-commerce sales for the fourth quarter 1999 was $5.3 billion (+/- $0.3 billion).

E-commerce sales accounted for 0.64 percent (+/- 0.05%) of the total retail sales estimate which was $821.2 billion (+/- $6.2 billion) for the quarter.

These estimates are not adjusted for seasonal variations, holiday or trading-day differences.

In the survey:

A stratified simple random sampling method is used to select more than 12,000 retail firms whose sales are then weighted and benchmarked to represent the total of more than 2 million retail firms.

Retail firms include businesses such as building materials dealers, new car dealers, furniture stores, mail order and online retailers, eating and drinking places, grocery stores, department stores and apparel stores selling merchandise for personal and household consumption. Online travel services, financial brokers and dealers, and ticket sales agencies are not included.

Retail e-commerce sales, while not previously identified separately, continue to be included in the total monthly sales estimates.

The Census Bureau plans to release quarterly retail e-commerce sales. The next scheduled release for first quarter 2000 will be in May.

The Census Bureau will also conduct additional e-commerce research.