E-commerce: Understanding the Forecasts

May 18 1998

When it comes to predicting e-commerce's future, there's nowhere to go but up. But exactly what is included in these forecasts varies depending on who gathers the data.

Consumer-based e-commerce is generally regarded as online shopping. Most firms count only purchases transacted online, but some, such as ActivMedia and The Yankee Group, include items shopped for on the Web but purchased offline. Business-to-business e-commerce estimates can vary depending on whether Web-based revenues such as advertising and subscriptions are included. Whether data are gathered from surveys of users, businesses or Web merchants also affects results.

A new report from Cyber Dialogue highlights this distinction. The report says $3.3 billion in revenue came from consumer transactions completed online, but another $4.2 billion in spending resulted from purchases researched online but completed offline.

If these figures aren't enough, Zona Research, Dataquest and Simba Information all expect to release their own forecasts in the next few months. In each case, further segmentation of the projections will enable more realistic and accurate expectations for global businesses in the Internet Economy.

- Maryann Jones Thompson