comScore: Etailing rebounds in April

After a slowing in sales in March, ecommerce rebounded in April according to a recent comScore report. Year over year, ecommerce growth rebounded to 15%; this follows an increase of only 9% in March.

by Kristina Knight

In April 2007, the growth rate was 18%; in May 2007 the growth rate increased to 25%. Though these rates are more than the growth shown in 2008, it is encouraging that April's growth rate did increase over that of the March growth rate.

“While the e-commerce growth rates in 2008 are softer than what we saw last year, it’s encouraging that April’s growth rate represented an increase from what was obviously a soft March for online consumer spending,” said comScore Chairman Gian Fulgoni. “One hopes that April will emerge as the beginning of a turnaround in the consumer economy and that spending will continue to accelerate as we move through the year and as the impact of the government’s economic stimulus tax rebate program begins to be felt.”

On the whole, for Q1 2008, consumers spent $32.8 billion in the online retail sector; this does include auction fees and automobiles but does not include event tickets. The US Department of Commerce estimated that Q1 online spending would be $32.4 billion.