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Technology Stocks : America On-Line (AOL) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jolie Renee who wrote (1559)	1/5/1999 9:25:00 PM
From: Cyrus	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 41369

WSJ January 5, 1999 AOL Members Spent $1.2 Billion Shopping Online During Holidays By REBECCA QUICK Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL America Online Inc. said its members spent fully $1.2 billion shopping online during the holiday season -- an average of $80 from each of the online service's 15 million accounts. That tally means that AOL subscribers alone spent slightly more than all online shoppers in the 1997 holiday season, when total cybersales amounted to about $1.1 billion, according to Jupiter Communications, an online-analysis firm based in New York. In a budding industry that has been reticent to discuss sales, the disclosure is the latest hard data to demonstrate that Internet shopping finally came of age this holiday season. Early returns show electronic commerce may have more than tripled this holiday season from a year earlier, and analysts are estimating that online sales will total about $13 billion for all of 1998. Individual Web merchants are also saying their sales more than tripled this holiday season. And iQVC, the Internet site of QVC television-shopping network, for example, estimates annual sales rose sharply to more than $50 million. QVC is controlled by Comcast Corp. The fact that online merchants are reporting actual sales figures this year speaks volumes. "In the past, [merchants] have been secretive when talking about the actual business value of online shopping," said Michael Sullivan-Trainor, vice president of Internet research for International Data Corp., Framingham, Mass. "Today they are boasting about commerce numbers, in part because they've got something to talk about now." But while sales are clearly multiplying, they still haven't translated into profit for many online retailers, even giants such as Amazon.com. And while the growth figures are impressive, online sales are still only a fraction of overall retail sales, which totaled $163 billion for the 1997 holiday season. "What will be interesting to watch is how important AOL is to the online shopping landscape," said Nicole Vanderbilt, an Internet analyst at Jupiter Communications, New York. A year ago, many industry watchers were looking to advertising sales and subscription fees as key revenue models for Web sites. But "e-commerce" is starting to take over as the leading model. "Online consumer shopping is the clear driver of online revenue potential," Ms. Vanderbilt added. AOL, Dulles, Va., said that in December it hosted 1.25 million first-time shoppers on its service. That number is significant, analysts say, because the biggest hurdle to online shopping is getting the consumer used to the idea of giving out credit-card information over the Internet. After that, online surfers are likely to make purchases more frequently. In 1996, the first year AOL began tracking online sales, most consumers were interested in computing products. Last holiday season, shoppers turned to apparel. This year, toys were the category most consumers were interested in buying online, the company said.