The UK Office for National Statistics this week released a
report on UK e-commerce in 2001, valuing on-line trade at £18.4
billion for the year, excluding the financial services sector,
representing 1% of the year’s total sales by non-financial sectors
of the economy.
Around 12,000 businesses of all sizes were surveyed. The results
show a 42% increase in on-line sales from 2000. The B2C share of
on-line sales increased from 33% to 36%. Total sales to households
increased by 53% between 2000 and 2001; sales to businesses
increased by 36% over the same period.
Geographically, 81% of all orders were from inside the UK, 12%
were from other EU countries and the remaining 7% were received
from outside the EU.
Physical products accounted for 62% of sales in 2001, 35% were
sales of services and 3% were sales of digitised products.
On-line spending exceeded sales. In 2001, there were £23.4
billion of on-line purchases made by firms in the non-financial
sectors, 20% of suppliers being based outside the UK.
According to the Office for National Statistics, the methodology
used for estimating trade in the financial sector is still under
review.
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