According to a story in the Mercury News, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is selling apparel on-line just in time for back to school shopping. The article stated the company had previously pulled out of on-line apparel selling three years ago.

According to The State of Retailing On-line 7.0, an annual Shop.org study conducted by Forrester Research of 150 retailers, 2003 on-line retail sales jumped 51% to $114 billion. The study also reported that on-line sales represent 5.4% of all retail sales.

The findings noted that this year on-line retail sales are expected to grow 27%, to $144 billion. As on-line sales increase, some sectors are experiencing extremely high growth, with on-line sales expected to increase in the health and beauty (by 61%), apparel (by 42%), and flowers, cards, and gifts (by 41%) categories.

"Consumers continue to expand their on-line buying into new product categories as they become more comfortable shopping on-line," said Carrie Johnson, lead author of the report and Senior Analyst at Forrester Research. “This main-streaming of the Web into consumers' lives not only fuels on-line sales, but also creates new opportunities for retailers to successfully grow their on-line businesses.”

According to the Mercury News article, Wal-Mart said walmart.com would offer apparel of more than 15 different brands in regular and special sizes for men, women and children. The new on-line feature started Tuesday. School uniforms are also available through the site.

The article quoted Walmart.com spokeswoman Amy Colella as saying the company offered clothing on-line when it launched its Web site in 2000, but apparel was pulled from the site in April 2001. The company stopped offering apparel on-line because of problems related to costs, availability and the price at which the clothing could be sold, she said.

"We now have a more streamlined logistics procedure and have a more comprehensive assortment," Colella said in the article.

It remains to be seen if this latest foray into on-line apparel offerings will keep the retailer hanging clothes on-line in the future, but statistically there’s a good chance of the clothes selling, according to the Shop.org results.