Report: Global online sales to increase 17.5% in 2013

Santa Monica, Calif. -- Global e-commerce sales are expected to rise 17.5% this year to $963 billion, up from $820.5 billion last year, according to a study by Siemer & Associates.



Currently, online accounts for just 6.5% of all retail sales worldwide but is growing four times faster than traditional retail. E-commerce sales are expected to account for 9.3% of retail sales by 2016.



Nordstrom plans to invest $1 billion, or one-third of its capital expenditures, into online efforts over the next five years, according to Siemer. Walmart has developed a new computing platform that collects information from social media streams to determine which trending products they should feature in online marketing.



The report finds that online commerce has been most disruptive to consumer electronics retailers. Technology and audio/video electronic products as a percentage of total e-commerce revenue rose to 24.5% last year from 19.8% in 2007, the report said.