US govt beats Amazon.com as largest online seller

The largest seller of products online is not Amazon.com. It is the United

States government, which last year sold more than $3.6 billion of products over

the Internet, more than the $2.8 billion Amazon.com reported for the same

period.

The products being sold by the 164 US government web sites are often exotic.

They include wild Mustang horses and former Coast Guard-owned homes in Los

Angeles from the Bureau of Land Management. Also available are 1940’s Southern

blues recordings from the Library of Congress and World War II ships from the

General Services Administration.

Not surprisingly, the online sales success appears to be achieved more by

accident than by planning, according to a new study on the subject by the Pew

Internet & American Life Project.

The study criticizes the government's efforts as "haphazardly" and

claims that the money raised by "dot-gov'' web sites isn't carefully

tracked. The revenue is either deposited in the general fund or given back to

the agency involved to improve its web site.

"We see some pretty elemental mistakes that would bankrupt a business if

it were doing e-commerce that same way,'' said Lee Rainie, director of the Pew

Internet & American Life Project.

For one, only a handful sites offer online purchasing. Usually, customers who

find an item they want to have, call the agency selling it. And there is no

coordination that would let customers find products available from various

government web sites.

By far the most advanced site is the US Treasury Department, which sold $3.3

billion in savings bonds, T-bills and notes online. The US Defense Department

operates eight sites selling items from toothpaste to army trucks.