Markets continue to tumble this week on news of global financial instability and the notable S&P downgrade of US debt. (Yes, the same S&P that gave mortgage backed securities AAA ratings.) In all the chaos, I’m assuming that most may miss the latest update on retail ecommerce spending: that is, according to comScore, retail ecommerce spending reached $37.5 B in Q2’11, which is up 14% over the same quarter last year.
While this seventh consecutive quarter of year-over-year growth is certainly good news for those of us in the ecommerce industry, this is mainly just a demonstration of the continued shift from offline to online spending that is occurring within the retail sector. What’s more, this is about an increase in the number of people making purchases online, as opposed to a sign of increased spending by those consumers who were already purchasing online.
This growth in ecommerce spending is in contrast to the broader economic situation. And even though it does mean that I am agreeing to some degree with Donald Trump, aka “The Donald” (who, for some questionable reason was just garnering airtime on CNN), I’m concerned with the near term future of the US economy. Personally, I think that we are seeing an over-reaction to the recent downgrade, but I’ll still be watching closely to see what happens in Q3, not only with ecommerce retail spending but with the US and global economic trends in general.
