Two thirds of all U.S. households will shop online by the year 2007, according to Carrie A. Johnson, an analyst at Forrester Research. eCommerce grew by a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 97% over the past 5 years, and will grow at a 25% CAGR over the next 5 years.

As early leaders like travel and electronics mature and experience slower growth over the next five years, late-blooming categories will experience the most rapid growth:

Food and beverage will grow at a CAGR of 49 percent, reaching $18.2 billion by 2007.

The home products category will grow by 42 percent over five years, from $7.3 billion in 2002 to $42.0 billion in 2007.

Flowers, cards, and gifts will grow by 41 percent, from $951 million in 2002 to $5.3 billion in 2007.

Forrester said that while technology boosts Web shopping, including the proliferation of 1-Click shopping and broadband's always-on dynamic, there is an increased risk of a security breach: exposure of millions of personal records would cause many consumers to pull the online shopping plug.

More information about Forrester's report entitled, " US eCommerce: The Next Five Years," may be found at http://www.forrester.com.