This Week On Bullish: The Rise Of American Ecommerce

Hello and welcome to Bullish, TechCrunch’s first talk show. This episode matters a bit more to me than usual, as it is the last week that I will host. After an amazing few years at TechCrunch, I’m changing jobs, which will make it ever so slightly harder to come in every week and put on the show.

All that aside, this week we dug into the American ecommerce market, a fine topic as we currently find ourselves deep in the holiday shopping cycle.

You’ve probably already spent more money on presents than you wanted, and quite a lot of that online. What’s notable is that, while ecommerce continues to grow quickly, it comprises a relatively modest percentage of aggregate shopping in the United States — just over 7 percent.

That figure surprised me. It’s a more than doubling since 2006, but that is only so impressive given the rise of companies like Amazon, and the entrance of well-funded rivals like Jet.com.

To help us better understand the future of American ecommerce, we had the CEO of Touch of Modern, Jerry Hum come in. TechCrunch recently covered his company’s financial progress. The male-focused ecommerce company is now generating revenue on an annual pace of over $100 million.

Hum was a good enough sport to do some projection work for us, so we have numbers to hold him hostage to. Hit play, and let’s do this one last time.