2009 recorded a negative growth of 2%, which is unprecedented, to touch $209.6 billion mark. The travel sector saw a drop of 5% to $79.8 billion, while, growth rate of e-commerce retail (non-travel) remained flat to $129.8 billion. For retail e-commerce, the no-growth year of 2009 has been preceded by a year of single digit growth (6% in 2008), which was the lowest growth rate for the segment on record. On an average this sector had an annual growth of around 20%.

But the good news is that the US consumer has shown some confidence in e-commerce in last two months (November and December) of 2009, which gave the segment a respective year-on-year growth of 3% to $12 billion and 5% to $17 billion.