Uncle Sam beats Amazon.com

The largest seller of products online is not Amazon.com. It is the US 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 websites 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 1940s 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 haphazard and claims that the money raised by 'dot-gov' websites were not carefully tracked. 

The revenue is either deposited in the general fund or given back to the agency involved to improve its website. "We see some pretty elemental mistakes that would bankrupt a business if it were doing e-commerce the same way," said Lee Rainie, Director, Pew Internet & American Life Project. 

For one, only a handful sites offer online purchasing. Usually customers who find an item they want have, call the agency selling it. And there is no coordination that it would let customers find products available from various government websites.

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.