Personalization and Technology-Enabled Marketing

Despite a few very heralded failures in 2000, online retail is a vital and growing sector. While the rest of the economy was sinking further into recession, on-line sales grew 21% to $51.3 billion in 2001, jumped 48% to $76 billion in 2002, and are expected to increase to $96 in 2003. Approximately 70% of on-line retailers showed positive operating margins in 2002, up from 56% the year before. As we come out of recession the U.S. Commerce Department reports that the increase in online retailing is five times as great as the increase in the rest of the retail sector. Most online retailers (63%) updated their inventory management systems to better manage their supply chain. On-line retailing leads in Forrester’s industry-byindustry analysis of Website usability. Personalization leads this trend.