Just Take a Look at These Statistics To See The Potential Of This Business

A survey by Continental Research discovered that the two biggest reasons for SME's not getting on-line are:

• Unsure of how to use technology
• Solutions focus on technology not business

This represents a major opportunity for those who take up our Internet
Consultancy. The business development program that comes with the package
will teach you how to market custom built solutions that solve the
compelling problems of your target market and use the Internet as an
effective business tool - instead of just focusing on technology..

(p) Preliminary estimate.

E-commerce sales are sales of goods and services where an order is placed by the buyer or price and terms of sale are negotiated over an Internet, extranet, Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) network, electronic mail, or other online system. Payment may or may not be made online.

Estimates are adjusted for seasonal variation and holiday and trading-day differences, but not for price changes.

E-Commerce Market Size and Trends

The increase and penetration of online use in the US increases the potential market size for E-Commerce on an annual basis. A large share of the expected growth in Internet commerce can be attributed to the increase in the online population:

U.S. online population estimated to increase nearly 50%, from 141.5 million in 2001 to 210.8 million by 2006 (CAGR of 8.2%). (see Figure 2 below) >

U.S.online retail sales will grow from $47.8 billion in 2002 to an estimated $130.3 billion in 2006 (see Figure 1 below)

There are 2.3 million small companies in the U.S.; with 16% of these in the retail trade and 60% of all small companies have an online presence - potential market size for our service is upwards of 200,000 companies.

Annual spending per buyer will increase from $457 in 2001 to $784 in 2006.

Figure 1: U.S. Online Retail Sales

Figure 2: U.S. Online Users

EBusiness and eCommerce Facts

In a market-based economy, prices transmit all of the information that participants in the economy require to make effective decisions. Producers need to know the prices of inputs they must buy and the prices of the outputs they wish to sell in order to decide what and how to produce. Consumers need to know the prices of the goods and services they might buy, and the going rate for their labour skills and other services they wish to sell, so that they can make appropriate decisions about household consumption and labour force participation. On both the production and consumption sides, market prices act as coordinating signals.

The number of active home Internet users dipped 0.46 percent from May to June in the 10 countries tracked by Nielsen//NetRatings.
The half a percent comes to a total of 1.5 million Internet users.

Active home users decreased in Spain (4.94 percent); the U.K. (3.34 percent); Switzerland (2.23 percent);
France (1.93 percent); and Italy (1.64 percent). The number of active Internet users went up slightly in Brazil (0.64 percent);
Germany (0.55 percent); Australia (0.48 percent); the U.S. (0.27 percent); and Japan (0.22 percent).

Active Internet users are derived from the number of users who have logged on in the previous 30 day

• Number of Internet companies based in New York City that have gone public since 1990: 16 Number of Internet companies based in San Jose, California, that have gone public since 1990: 6
• The number of Internet users in China is estimated at 1,750,000
• 1,700,000 copies of the Starr Report were downloaded from CNN in the first two days it was available.
• Delta Airlines is planning to charge a $2.- fee for tickets not purchased on the Internet. Amount of Delta Airlines tickets sold via the Internet in 1998: less than 3%
• Estimated US consumer spending on online retail purchases during 1998 holiday season is $8,200,000,000
• There are 19 members of the U.S. National Advisory Commission on Electronic Commerce.
• 25% of retail stock trades now taking place on the Internet.
• 87% of print journalists are connected to the Internet.
• Bank's cost to process an in-person transaction: $1.07 Bank's cost to process an Internet transaction: $0.01
• Estimated number of web users in the U.S. (May 1998): 57,037,000
• The U.S. Census Bureau is expected to be using the Internet for the census in the year 2010
• There are 7 time servers operated by the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology.
• It took 5 Vanderbilt students to make the Muhammad Ali's web site.
• Estimated number of web pages, as of April, 1998: 320,000,000
• Number of gopher requests to the InterNIC registration services during February, 1998: 71,744.Number of phone calls to the InterNIC registration services during February, 1998: 40,476.Number of WWW requests to the InterNIC registration services during February, 1998: 17,091,774
• None of the U.S. government agencies is rated as being in full compliance with the Electronic Freedom of Information Act.
• There are no Internet service providers (ISP's) in Saudi Arabia!
• Businesses in Britain and Ireland estimated the cost of dealing with spam e-mail at $8,000,000,000.-
• Some of the chopsticks at Mary Chung's lunch are labeled with URLs.
• In 1998, 3.4 trillion e-mail messages delivered to 81 million e-mail users in the United States, says a marketing firm. That's more than 6.5 million messages per minute. "Some people, particularly those in high-tech fields, get over 200 per day," said Geoffrey Ramsey of eMarketer, which performed the study.
• A fresh light has been shed on the browser wars as a result of a set of never before asked questions. We now know that a) the dominant method people acquire browsers is via bundling with hardware, software, and Internet Service Providers (ISP) and b) the majority of users never switch browsers (even among users who have been on the Internet for over three years). Given these new findings, it is not surprising to see the slow, but steady emergence of Internet Explorer as market share is being gained primary from new users who receive the browser bundled as part of other computer related purchases.
• According to the Spring 97 CommerceNet and Nielsen Media Research Study of Internet Demographics and Electronic Commerce, 71 percent of frequent Web users most often use search engines to find Web sites.
  Other methods of locating sites include recommendations from friends and relatives (9.8%), newspapers and magazines (8.5%), links from other Web sites (8.4%), television (3.6%) and printed Internet directories (3.3%).
•  In October 1996, a report by Frost and Sullivan claimed that advertising is fast becoming the largest growing segment of the Internet, accounting for 3.4 percent or $85,000,000 of all ad dollars spent in 1996. The market is expected to grow to 22.2 percent or $5,480,000,000 by 2002.
• In December 1996, a Forrester Research report entitled 'Sizing the Internet Economy,' estimated that the Internet economy will approach $200,000,000,000 in the year 2000, up from its present $15,000,000,000 level.
• The report also stated that business-to-business electronic commerce in the US alone would represent $66,000,000,000 in Internet revenues by 2000
• An estimated 33,000,000 US households will go on-line by the year 2000, and the number of businesses connected will rise from 4 percent in 1996 to 33 percent in 2000.
• November 1996, an ActivMedia report entitled 'Secrets of Education Marketing on the WEB, claimed that educators, academic researchers and academic institutions are key buyers for profitable Web marketers. It found that companies targeting education markets averaged sales nearly twice those of Web marketers in general