In 1998, eCommerce was barely beginning, but by the time the Christmas shopping season had ended there was no doubt that there was a new force to reckoned with in retailing. Consumer eCommerce was off and running.
All projections call for exponential growth for the next few years.
There is little reason to doubt those projections. Investors were quickly convinced that something dramatic was afoot. Although consumer driven eCommerce has received the lion's share of the media attention, the most spectacular opportunities almost certainly lie in the other areas of eBusiness. For example, In 1997 eMarketer estimated that B2B was about 3 times larger than consumer eCommerce.