FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE THURSDAY, MARCH 8, 2001
Public Information Office CB01-44
301-457-3030/301-457-3670 (fax)
301-457-1037 (TDD)
e-mail: pio@census.gov
Census Bureau Says Business-to-Business Dominates E-Commerce;
First Report on Online Business for Key Economic Sectors
Business-to-business activity accounted for a significant share of
overall e-commerce, with manufacturing ($485 billion in shipments ordered
online) overshadowing business-to-consumer transactions such as retail
trade ($15 billion in online sales) for 1999, according to the first
official e-commerce statistics for several key sectors of the economy from
the Commerce Department's Census Bureau.
E-commerce accounted for 12 percent of the total value of all manufacturing
shipments in 1999, while merchant wholesale trade achieved 5.3 percent of
its sales through online transactions. E-commerce accounted for less than
1 percent of selected service industries' revenues and retail trade sales.
"Almost all industry groups are engaged in e-commerce to some degree,
but a significant portion of the total e-commerce dollar value is
concentrated in a handful of industry groups," said Frederick T.
Knickerbocker, the Census Bureau's associate director for Economic
Programs.
In manufacturing, five groups (transportation equipment, computer and
electronic products, chemicals, machinery and food products) accounted for
63 percent of the dollar value of all e-commerce shipments. In merchant
wholesale trade, three industry groups (drugs and druggists' sundries;
motor vehicles, parts and supplies; and professional and commercial
equipment and supplies) accounted for 75 percent of merchant wholesale
sales online. In selected service industries, four groups (travel
arrangement and reservation services, securities and commodity contracts
intermediation and brokerage, publishing industries and computer systems
design and related services) accounted for 60 percent of e-commerce
revenues. In retail trade, one industry group (electronic shopping and
mail-order houses) accounted for 76 percent of e-commerce sales.
E-commerce was most prevalent in manufacturing. Five groups in
manufacturing had e-commerce shipments that accounted for 15 percent or
more of the industry group's total shipments, led by transportation with
21 percent. Only two groups -- wood products and petroleum and coal
products -- had e-commerce shipments that accounted for less than 5
percent of their total shipments.
The e-commerce data were collected in four separate Census Bureau
surveys, which collected the value of goods and services sold online
through open networks such as the Internet or over proprietary networks
running systems such as Electronic Data Interchange.
The E-Stats report (released March 7) comes one year after the Census
Bureau released its first estimates of retail online sales. The Census
Bureau's recent estimates of e-commerce retail sales for 2000 are not
directly comparable to the 1999 data released today because of differences
in classification.
Other highlights from the report:
- In merchant wholesale trade, the leading industry groups in online
sales were drugs and druggists' sundries (32 percent of the group's
total sales); motor vehicles, parts and supplies (17 percent); and
professional and commercial equipment and supplies, and hardware,
plumbing and heating equipment and supplies (8 percent each).
- For selected service industries, the four top industries in terms
of percentage of total sales via e-commerce were travel arrangement
and reservation services (21 percent), securities and commodity
contracts intermediation and brokerage (15 percent), publishing
(12 percent) and computer systems design and related services
(11 percent).
- In the selected service groups, the travel arrangement and
reservation services industry was the online leader with e-commerce
accounting for 21 percent of total revenue.
- In retail trade, electronic shopping and mailing order houses
accounted for three-fourths of total retail sales via e-commerce.
The leading e-commerce merchandise categories within retail trade
were computer hardware (37 percent of total industry e-commerce
sales) and books and magazines (14 percent).
The Census Bureau report called E-Stats covers about 70 percent of the
economic activity measured in the 1997 Economic Census. The report does
not cover agriculture, mining, utilities, construction, nonmerchant
wholesalers and about one-third of service-related industries.
Data are from the 1999 Annual Survey of Manufactures' Computer Network
Use Supplement, Annual Retail Trade Survey, Annual Trade Survey and
Service Annual Survey.
The data are subject to sampling variability and nonsampling errors.
Sources of nonsampling error include errors of response, nonreporting and
coverage. Measures of sampling variability, presented as relative standard
errors, are shown in tables in the report.
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