E-commerce sales growth continued to outpace total retail sales growth in 1Q 2017

U.S. retail e-commerce sales for the first quarter of 2017 rose 4.1 percent from the fourth quarter of 2016.  At the same time, total retail sales for the first quarter of 2017 rose 1.0 percent.

Comparing year-on-year, the first quarter 2017 e-commerce estimate increased 14.7 percent from the first quarter of 2016 while total retail sales increased 5.1 percent in the same period.

E-commerce sales in the first quarter of 2017 accounted for 8.5 percent of total sales, up from 8.2 percent the previous quarter and 7.8 year-on-year.