This post was written by Kelly Bennett, Business Reference and Research Specialist in the Science & Business Reading Room.
What’s your favorite part of the holiday season? Dinners with family? Lights and decorations? Gifts? All of these require at least some holiday shopping. According to the National Retail Federation, holiday shopping will set records in 2024 with consumers expected to spend an average of $902 on food, gifts, décor and other seasonal items. For many, online shopping has made all this spending much more convenient. The most recent U.S. Census Bureau estimates indicate that 16% of all retail sales are e-commerce, a percentage that continues to increase.
Interested in learning more about e-commerce as an industry? The Business Section recently published E-Commerce: A Research Guide. This guide provides suggested current resources, including books, databases and websites. These cover various aspects of e-commerce, such as marketing, management, trade policy and more. For example, “Electronic Commerce Research” is a peer-reviewed journal covering topics like live streaming commerce and customer retention in e-commerce using machine learning. There’s also a section of the research guide that lists select publications from the early days of e-commerce, like the the short-lived periodical, “Internet Shopper.” Its first issue, from spring 1997, features articles like “Buying Airline Tickets on the Web,” and “Cruise an Online Food Court.”
If you need any assistance researching e-commerce, feel free to Ask a Librarian!
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