I spotted an interesting story (subscription required) in today’s Shop.org SmartBrief (free subscription!) from the Wall Street Journal.  According to the story, Moody’s Investors Service has started including online sales of major retailers as an important factor in its credit ratings.

Moody’s cites the high volume of online retail sales as a primary reason for this decision.  With online retail expected to generate more than $200 billion in sales in 2008, this move makes complete sense and is another sign of our industry maturing.

The article references two publicly-held retailers whose outlooks were adjusted due to their online sales.  One retailer was adjusted negatively because of order fulfillment problems.  The other was positively affected due to strong online sales.

Each day there is more evidence that shoppers are turning to the Internet as part of their shopping.  When they do, what they see online is more likely to influence their off-line purchases than result in an online sale.  Hopefully, what Moody’s has started will lead to Wall Street looking more closely at the overall online presence of retailers – not just online sales.