People spend the majority of their time online consuming content, according to a report recently published by the Direct Marketing Association.
Consumers spend 43% of their time with content online, compared to 36% with e-mail, 16% making purchases and 5% conducting searches, according to the DMA’s Statistical Fact Book, a massive collection of direct marketing statistics collected from various sources the DMA publishes annually.
Not surprisingly, the number of purchases people make online and percentage of U.S. adults who buy online are growing.
Of those who buy online, consumers in 2007 made an average of 36 purchases, according to the report. This is compared to 34.6 in 2005 and 29.9 in 2003.
Also, the percentage of U.S. adults who buy online grew to 67% in 2007, compared to 51.1% in 2005 and 45.6% in 2005, according to the fact book which sourced the University of Southern California’s Digital Future Report for the findings.
And just as not surprisingly, e-commerce sales continue to grow.
U.S. retail e-commerce sales for the third quarter of 2007 were $34.7 billion, in increase of 3.6% over the second quarter and 19.3% over the third quarter of 2006 while total retail sales increased 3.8% in the same period, said the report, which sourced the U.S. Department of Commerce for the figures.
E-commerce sales in the third quarter of 2007 accounted for 3.4% of total sales, the report noted.