U.S. Online Holiday Retail Spending Picks Up Pace

Holiday season retail e-commerce spending has caught up with last year’s pace following unexpectedly strong sales since Thanksgiving, according to the latest data from comScore. For the holiday season through December 5, $14.92 billion has been spent online, essentially the same level compared to the corresponding days last year.

For the five days beginning with December 1 (Cyber Monday), the kick-off to the heaviest part of the online shopping season, sales totaled $3.74 billion, up 9 percent versus year ago. Two individual days in the past week achieved more than $800 million in online spending: Monday, December 1 (“Cyber Monday”) with $846 million, and Tuesday, December 2 with $823 million.

The fastest growing product categories during the period from December 1 through December 5 were Sport & Fitness (up 35 percent) and Consumer Electronics (up 24 percent), which saw sales surge as a result of significant price reductions on many items, including flat panel TVs. Apparel & Accessories, the second largest retail category in terms of dollar sales (after Computer Hardware) during this period, also experienced strong gains (up 16 percent). The softest retail categories include Music, Movies & Videos (down 24 percent) and Jewelry & Watches (down 22 percent).

During the five-day period since Cyber Monday, traffic to the retail site category is up 2 percent versus year ago, with many sites drawing a substantial number of visitors.

eBay (Nasdaq: EBAY) topped the list with 36 million unique visitors, but was down 9 percent from last year. Three of the top ten retailer sites saw gains versus year ago: Amazon (Nasdaq:AMZN) up 10 percent, Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT), up 7 percent), and Apple Inc. (Nasdaq: AAPL), up 29 percent. Overstock (Nasdaq: OSTK), down 15 percent and Dell (Nasdaq: DELL) down 17 percent were the big laggards compared with last year.

Chase Paymentech’s Cyber Holiday Pulse Index also indicates a healthy increase in holiday shopping in recent days. Total sales volume is ahead of last year by 14 percent. Transaction count has increased 27 percent versus last year. Average ticket continues to be down and at this point, the average decline is 12 percent. The latest week has shown the most activity so far this holiday season.

While Cyber Monday represented only a slight increase in sales volume, midweek volume was up significantly. “Cyber Tuesday” experienced the highest transaction count and sales volume for any day this year or in previous years.

Compared to last year, sales volume was up 47 percent and transaction count was up a whopping 55 percent. Wednesday showed a slight decline in the trend line, but overall, this year’s trends seem to be following the patterns set by previous shopping seasons, with mid-week shopping being the busiest days.

Comments

[rayala2:]

Couldn't some of Dell's activity drop off be attributed to the fact that its computers can now be found in a few bricks and mortar stores?

2008 Dec 08 04:49 PM

[madmilker:]

With the American consumer so tight with a George Washington tat their breath smells like sh!! and they squeak when they walk....tat picking up pace will be like a snail chasing a gnat on a road full of giant tumblebugs rolling manure in little roll balls.

2008 Dec 08 04:55 PM

[Kiran Ganta:]

Due to economy status shopping is don in this shopping season,

Here I found some good deals and offers site for this shopping season

www.dealsglobe.com

2008 Dec 08 11:27 PM

[Joe A.:]

I recognize that there are those out there would would prefer for us to sit and wallow in the gloom and doom of economic change. However, it's great to see data like this that suggests that not all Americans are buying into the hype.

What did I learn from this article? That the action is online.

I hope that more and more business owners (especially small business owners) will look to leverage e-commerce to make up for any potential drop they are seeing in walk-in traffic.

2008 Dec 09 12:23 PM

[Warren S.:]

Of course the action is online. You'd have to be a glutton for punishment to subject yourself to a mall when all you need to do is log on to your computer at home. I haven't left the house to shop once, used comparison sites like Sortprice.com sortprice.com and I'm done. With 2 weeks or so to spare.

2008 Dec 09 03:39 PM