The U.S. economy may be headed into a recession, but e-commerce sales are estimated to grow 17% to $204 billion this year. The Forrester Research report sees a continued increase in e-commerce spending as value-shoppers go bargain hunting and affluent investors seeking the comfort and convenience of shopping from home. This is great news for many online retailers as well as online marketing companies.

"From higher shipping costs to changes in consumer shopping habits, online retailers are not immune to the current economic climate," said Scott Silverman, executive director of Shop.org. "But the fact that online sales will increase substantially this year demonstrates the resilience of the channel and is a testament to the value and convenience most customers find when shopping online."

Companies like Amazon.com Inc. (NDAQ: AMZN) and eBay Inc. (NDAQ: EBAY) stand to benefit the most from the increased online spending given their market leadership positions. Unfortunately, much of this growth is already priced into the stocks. Amazon.com trades at 68x earnings with a P/E to growth ratio of 2.19, which means that the stock may be overvalued given its most recent growth. Meanwhile, eBay is trading at 125x earnings with a P/E to growth ratio of 1.25, which makes it a little more affordable.

The Forrester Research report also indicated that search engine marketing continues to be the most effective way to reach new customers. In fact, 90% of all online retailers use pay-for-performance search placement and 79% said they will make such tactics an even greater priority this year. Currently, the survey found that around 35% of all sales comes from search engine marketing venues.

These increases should help boost stocks like Google Inc. (NDAQ: GOOG) who rely on search engine marketing for much of their income. Other potential benefactors include Yahoo Inc. (NDAQ: YHOO) and Microsoft (NDAQ: MSFT), who both have their own online ad platforms that many online retailers use to advertise their services in an increasingly competitive market.

"What’s spearheading online retail sales growth is a tale of two shoppers that visit the web for very different reasons," said Sucharita Mulpuru, Forrester Research principal analyst and lead author of the report. "The casual shopper goes online to look for the best price, leveraging the transparency of the Internet to save money. However, more affluent customers appreciate the convenience of shopping online and are not necessarily looking for the best deal. Retailers would be wise to recognize there are significant opportunities within both audiences and should market to them accordingly."

In the end, this is great news for the only positive segment of the retailing market.

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