US retail e-commerce sales are projected to grow in single-digits.

The US market was once the hot location for trend spotting. If you wanted to see if an idea had legs, find out who was doing something similar in the US and take it from there.
 
This has changed now and an area which has also been hit hard by the global credit crunch is e-commerce. However, while the growth in e-commerce in the Australian market has been estimated at around 25% for 2007/2008, online shopping in the US this year has already been shaping up to be the weakest holiday season yet. 
 
The US Department of Commerce has just released third quarter e-commerce data estimating that e-commerce sales grew only 4.6% in Q3 2008, compared with Q3 2007. Industry analysts are predicting that 2008 will now be the first year of single-digit growth of the decade.

Online sales (excluding travel) will total nearly US$137 billion in 2008, up 7.2% year-over-year, compared with last year’s 19.8% growth rate according to leading US marketing site eMarketer.

eMarketer claims that consumers will spend only US$30.3 billion online in November and December this year. Its May number was a mere 10.1% growth over last year’s holiday spending. But the new estimate is tracking at just around 4% growth.

Weak economy pressuring sales 
The weak economy is placing downward pressure on e-commerce sales this season. Online shopping growth had already been slowing naturally as part of the channel’s maturation; the economy is slowing growth even more.

eMarketer’s e-commerce analyst, Jeffrey Grau, expressed confidence but delivered a dose of reality at the same time, “Hopefully, we’re nearing the bottom of this,” he said. “People are going to be more frugal this holiday season."