Snippets of Retail Info

“The growth in large emerging markets such as China is projected to add at least 70 million new consumers to the global middle class per year, which is an additional 500 million new middle-class consumers by 2020," said Vicky Eng, global retail lead, Deloitte US. "This new wave of consumption represents a huge opportunity for consumer businesses.”

Google has been making defensive plays in Internet retail, looking to hold off its primary competition on the Web, Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) and Facebook Inc. (FB). Google has been working with retailers that compete with Amazon by helping them reach consumers through its search engine and is expected to help retailers offer same-day delivery of goods to online shoppers this year.
(http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20130206-707929.html?mod=dist_smartbrief)

White paper posted in the Shop.org library by SCI Logistics:

Canada only has just over half the number of retail square feet of selling space per person than the US. In the US there are roughly 7.3 billion square feet of retail space for 313 million people for about 23 square feet per person. In Canada there are 500 million square feet of retail space for 34.5 million people meaning only 14 square feet of retail space per person. 

Current projections for total online internet sales in Canada show that they are on track to double by 2015. In fact, consumers in Canada are the heaviest internet users in world at 45 hours per month vs 39 hours per month in the United States. Add to this that Canadians spend an average of 47% more per internet order than US consumers and the case for e-commerce entry into Canada becomes extremely compelling.

The research firm, eMarketer, said North America remained the top region for ecommerce in 2012 with USD 364 billion in sales, up 13.9 per cent. But for 2013, the Asia-Pacific region is likely to be number one with 30 per cent growth, which would bring the market to USD 433 billion, eMarketer said.
 

Amazon’s five-year average return on investment, for example, is 17%, whereas traditional discount and department stores average 6.5%. 

Experts estimate that digital information already influences about 50% of store sales, and that number is growing rapidly.

the average American Customer Satisfaction Index score for online retailers such as Amazon (87 points) is 11 points higher than the average for physical discount and department stores.

Online sales account for less than 2% of revenue at Walmart and Target.