comScore says mobile commerce and social marketing may be the savior of the future for online sales.

May 15, 2009
By Michelle Megna: More stories by this author:

While e-commerce growth was flat for the first quarter, the sector likely bottomed out, with online sales increases likely to hover around 5 percent for the second half of the year, comScore Chairman Gian Fulgoni said during a Webinar going over the research firm's Q1 findings.

Though e-commerce had seen double-digit growth for the past several years, Fulgoni said the worst may be over, as he cited mobile commerce and social network and video site marketing at sites such as Twitter and Hulu as opportunities for bolstering sales in the near future.

"The good news here is that I think it's bottomed out, in the second quarter we saw 13 percent growth, that dropped to six in the third quarter of 08, in Q4 it was minus three, now flat in the first quarter, so we're not seeing a continued downward trend," said the comScore (NASDAQ: SCOR) chief.

He was less optimistic, however, on future growth for this year, saying it's not likely online sales will see the double-digit increases the sector enjoyed over the past few years, and reluctantly predicted about five percent spikes.

In terms of how the Internet is affecting shopping behavior, comScore data shows three-quarters of people are likely to collect information online before buying offline. "That says it all right there. You need to move marketing dollars to build your brand online," said Fulgoni.

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