RSSAnalysts: Holiday shopping still not tanking
By Tim Conneally | Published December 15, 2008, 11:53 AM
Web metrics company comScore has been tracking activity and spending on e-commercial sites this holiday season, and this year is on par with last year, indicating that the dreaded "r-word" is not having too negative an impact.
Before "Cyber Monday," comScore predicted the growth in online commerce for the holiday season would remain mostly flat, or with negligible growth. This prediction has thus far been fulfilled as holiday spending hit a slow patch last week.
However, the doldrums that characterized December 8-12 marked only a one percent decline against last year overall. What would have otherwise represented a much larger decline was offset by the single day spike that took place on December 9. Somehow, commerce on December 9 not only exceeded Cyber Monday sales, but surpassed the heaviest shopping day on record (which was December 10, 2007).
Should "Cyber Monday" be moved to the position of the second week in December? After all, online shopping generally takes less time to complete than in shopping done in brick-and-mortar locations.
A study from Taiwan's Sue-Te University released earlier this year explained that this disparity in speed is included in the mechanism of physical shopping. The appeal of traditional shopping includes entertainment, social interaction, movement, and trip-chaining; online shopping is mostly task oriented. However, because of the apprehension surrounding timely and safe product delivery, many consumers opt to simply go to a store and purchase their gifts.
ComScore says that last-minute deals will continue online, and that some sites guarantee a Christmas Eve delivery as late as one week before Christmas. That date, December 18, looks to be the point at which online spending will drop off until after Christmas Day. At that point last year, gift card redemption on sites such as iTunes caused a post-holiday explosion in online commerce.
e-commerce is getting more and more popular. this creates the need of having good tools to help shoppers make right decisions while buying online. www.reizit.com is a place where shoppers can recommend or bury a product, share experience and discuss shopping deals.
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|I'm finding great deals posted at www.cybermondaydiscountcodes.com
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|I always shake my head when reading stuff like this.
Yes, spending may be on par with last years shopping season, but DEBT will most likely be double!
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|Let me guess...
Thoise with discretinary spending will spend, and those who lack discretionary spending will spend less.
Gee, its so risky to go out on a limb like this...And I didn't even have to reference a Taiwanese study that analyzes instant gratification versus online savings. Amazing that we are still debating the impact of online business models 10 years after that should have been addressed...
And who gives a flip if Cyber Monday is on a Wednesday or 1 week or 4 days after Black Friday? People will buy a good deal when it is offered - provided there is sufficient advertisment to make them aware of it.
And don't dare confuse the fact that they are trying to make generalizations based upon an aberant 4 week shopping period rather than the typical 5 week period before Christmas...
But we spare no efforts to MAKE the news, rather than to simply report the news...
I wonder.....do you think the Internet will ever catch on? Nah, its just a passing phase...a fad...
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|you almost made a good point, but ruined it by "over elaborating"
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|The thread itself is an 'over-elaboration'; in an effort to make an issue of a worldwide slowdown in spending.
If a recession is essentially a slowdown in spending, and we are all essentially in agreement that we are indeed experiencing such a phenomena, why do we need a day by day analysis attempting to speculate as to whether there is a general slowdown inspending.
And one day, may or may not reflect this trend - and it will have no net effect on the general trend. Regardless of the performance on one day, to attempt to draw any conclusion regarding a general trend based upon an exceptional day with atypical pricing is ridiculous.
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