Washington, D.C. — The U.S. Mint announced today that revenue from orders placed through the Mint’s website @ www.USMINT.com have reached nearly $7 million since April 1, 1999.
“We’ve been surprised and delighted by how quickly our customers have adapted to ordering over the web,” said Mint Director Philip N. Diehl. “Cumulative Internet revenues have doubling nearly every month since we started taking orders in April.
In addition, Internet sales now account for 5 percent of the Mint’s total numismatic sales, excluding sales of bullion coins through wholesale channels, surpassing the industry average of 4 percent for retail catalogue Internet orders.
“We attribute the rapid acceptance of Internet commerce among our customers to the ease of ordering and the extraordinarily quick fulfillment Internet processing allows,” said Diehl. “Many of our customers are receiving their coins in as little as 4 to 5 days after placing Internet orders, versus 3 to 4 weeks with mail orders.”
About 10 percent of Internet orders have come from customers not yet fully comfortable with using credit cards to order on line. For these customers, the Mint provides special mail order or fax order forms that may be downloaded and printed out on personal computers, and also accepts telephone orders on the U.S. Mint’s toll–free phone number at 1–800–USA–MINT. Orders by mail order, fax or telephone do incur a $3.95 shipping and handling fee.