NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Online sales grew to $15.7 billion in the second quarter, up a strong 23.1 percent from the same period a year earlier, a Commerce Department report showed Friday.

According to the report, online sales in the second quarter accounted for 1.7 percent of total retail sales.

Total retail sales for the second quarter grew 7.8 percent from the 2003 period to $919 billion.

Internet sales were up 0.9 percent from $15.5 billion in the first quarter of 2004, while total retail sales increased 10.1 percent from the prior quarter.

"We think online sales are growing at a healthy clip and should come in line with our forecast for $65 billion in total online sales in 2004," said Patti Freeman Evans, analyst with Jupiter Research."The sales increase is also very encouraging for the sector given the larger macro-economic uncertainties."

Evans said the sales growth is partly a factor of more first-time users of the Internet.

"Internet penetration is about 60 percent of the total U.S. population. However, not all Internet users are shoppers but we're seeing more people start to buy online," said Evans.

"The other thing is that as the Internet becomes a ubiquitous part of our lives, people are making a wider breadth of online purchases. It's not just used for buying clothes and books. They're also buying furniture, personal care products and tickets."