I’m a stats junkie, and I am always curious about the numbers of Web operations. That’s why I just love the Top 500 Guide http://www.internetretailer.com/top500/ of Internet Retailer magazine, which is a 260-page directory ranking and profiling of the 500 largest e-retailers based on their 2005 online sale. The book of course focuses on mostly big businesses, but it is interesting to learn what made these companies successful.

Here are some interesting facts from the this publication:

• Fastest growing etailers. Among the 100 largest e-retailers in 2004, Zappos.com grew at the fastest rate (101%) in 2005. Among all the Top 500, Blockbuster.com had the best growth rate, expanding its web sales 17-fold in 2005 to $146.7 million to become the country’s 70th largest e-retail business, through it still lags well behind Netflix (#21), the pioneer and leader in online movie rentals.
• Conversion rates. Peapod converted 31% of its visitors into buyers, giving it the highest conversion rate among the Top 500 e-retailers, while BMI Gaming, with a conversion rate of only 0.1%, had the lowest visitor-to-business ratio among the Top 500.
• Profitable Online Niche. While there are only 11 office supply merchants in the Top 500, they generated $10.3 billion in online sales last year (or 12.5% of total online sales generated by the Top 500 e-retailers).
• Average Web Item Sales. The average retail sales ticket online is about $167. The smallest average web ticket in the Top 500 is $9.50 and the largest is $4,000.