The market for Internet related products and services continues to grow at a phenomenal rate. Service connections presently total over 20,000 per day worldwide, while active web pages or sites are growing at the rate of 3,000 per day. Today, the bulk of Internet Commerce is Business-to-Business. The Business-to-Consumer market is expected to grow as the issues of security, easy-to-use sites and prompt fulfillment are satisfied. In the July, 1999 issue of Credit Card Management, Mark Brohan, Editor of Internet Retailer, gave the following forecast for Internet Consumer Commerce,

"Last year 10 million households spent US$8 billion buying consumer products from 15,000 online shopping sites. But that’s just the start. In 1999, consumers will spend an estimated US$11 billion shopping on the Internet, a figure that will mushroom to a projected US$17 billion in 2000, US$27 billion in 2001 and US$41 billion in 2002. Within five years an estimated 61 million shoppers will be purchasing everything from furniture to groceries online."

More...