1. See S Mulpuru,US Online Retail Forecast, 2010 to 2015, Forrester Research (28 February 2011) [hereinafter Forrester Research], available at http://www.forrester.com/rb/Research/us_online_retail_forecast%2C_2010_to_2015/q/id/58596/t/2. According to Forrester, a far larger portion of offline sales, about US$ 917 billion, was influenced by online research services. Forrester also estimates that online and web-influenced offline sales together accounted for 42% of total retail sales and that that percentage figure will grow to 53% by 2014, when the web will be influencing US$ 1.4 billion worth of in-store sales.
2. On the other hand, lower search and switching costs (ie the ability for buyers to easily purchase the same product by multiple sellers simply based on the best price they can get) make it more difficult for online businesses to retain customers than is the case for traditional retailers. See M Trusov, RE Bucklin and KH Pauwels, “Effects of Word-of-Mouth versus Traditional Marketing: Findings from an Internet Social Networking Site”, Robert H Smith School Research Papers No RHS 06–065 (24 April 2008), available at http://ssrn.com/abstract=1129351.
3. The Politics of Distribution