How big is e-commerce?
Compared to the rest of the national economy, e-commerce is barely a blip on the radar screen. According to a survey from IntelliQuest’s Worldwide Internet/Online Tracking Service, only 15 percent of Netizens use e-commerce. The research firm Computer Intelligence recently interviewed 40,000 U.S. businesses, and found that less than 2 percent of the country’s 4.8 million computerized business locations are involved in some form of electronic commerce. But–and this is the part that everyone is excited about–that figure is double the one reported just last year. According to Forrester Research, consumers and businesses will funnel a total of $8 billion through e-commerce sites this year. And in an October 1996 report, Forrester predicted that by the year 2000, more than $546 billion will be spent online–and the organization is currently revising that number upward. As for the hottest areas of e-commerce, in terms of tangible goods sold via the Internet and other electronic means (such
