This ticked-off cat isn't too thrilled about the snow, but plenty of online retailers are.
(Credit: Caroline McCarthy/CNET)A blizzard that pelted much of the Eastern Seaboard with over a foot of snow also led to a spike in last-minute online holiday shopping last weekend, traffic firm ComScore said Tuesday.
Online shopping continues to eat up a bigger chunk of holiday retail each year, but this season, with roads snowbound and temperatures well below freezing in some of the most populous areas of the country at the tail end of the holiday season, it was even more than usual. (Several cities in the mid-Atlantic, like Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., pulled in more snow in a single snowfall than they typically do in an entire season.) For the weekend of December 19-20, U.S. traffic to non-travel retail sites was up 13 percent from the equivalent weekend last year--and on Tuesday, December 15, right when the storms started hitting weather forecasts, it was up 21 percent.
That Tuesday marked the biggest online spending day in history, ComScore says.
"The major snowstorms hitting the eastern seaboard over the weekend appear to have given holiday e-commerce an additional boost, resulting in the heaviest online spending week on record at $4.8 billion," ComScore chair Gian Fulgoni said in a release. "Consumers have clearly continued to spend online later into the season this year, with several very strong spending days in the most recent week including the heaviest online spending day in history--Tuesday, December 15, with $913 million. Retailers have been very aggressive with late season promotions while informing consumers that they could still get their purchases shipped in time for Christmas, and these tactics seem to be paying off."
A survey from Coremetrics said that sales for "Cyber Monday," the Monday after Thanksgiving and typically a day for big online deals, showed healthy gains this year.
A snapshot of holiday sales.
(Credit: ComScore)This year's online holiday-shopping season has topped $19.9 billion so far--a 3 percent jump over the same period in 2008, according to ComScore.
Online sales were bolstered last week when consumers spent more than $800 million on two separate days, ComScore said. On Thursday, for example, consumers coughed up $852 million.
Monday has the potential to produce the best day of this year's holiday-shopping season, which started November 1 in ComScore's stats.
ComScore Chairman Gian Fulgoni said that Monday "represents our best opportunity to finally surpass that elusive $900 million spending threshold. The early part of this upcoming week should bring us the heaviest online spending days of the season before consumers refocus their attention on brick-and-mortar retail locations to finish up their holiday shopping."
Considering that 2008 wasn't the great year for holiday sales, online or otherwise, it is also worth looking back to 2007. From November 1 through December 14 in 2007, ComScore reported, consumers spent $22.67 billion online.
ComScore's 2009 figures included up through Friday, December 11. It will be interesting to see whether the extra three days could push this year's online sales figures anywhere near 2007's level.
The new report is the latest from the e-commerce-tracking company showing healthier sales than last year. A recent report cited strong Cyber Monday sales figures.
Updated at 7:15 a.m. PDT with 2007 online sales figures.
Don Reisinger is a technology columnist who has written about everything from HDTVs to computers to Flowbee Haircut Systems. Don is a member of the CNET Blog Network, and posts at The Digital Home. He is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure.
The 2009 holiday season thus far is revealing much stronger online sales figures than what was witnessed in 2008, market-research firm ComScore announced late Wednesday.
According to the company, which has monitored spending for the first 30 days of the November-December shopping season, sales are up 3 percent to $12.26 billion, compared to the same period in 2008. Cyber Monday sales hit $887 million in online spending, tallying a 5 percent gain over the same day last year. That amount also matched "the biggest spending day on record, December 9, 2008."
"We've seen an encouraging start to the online holiday shopping season and it would appear that retailers' aggressive and early marketing efforts have so far succeeded in persuading consumers to open their wallets online," ComScore chairman Gian Fulgoni said in a statement. "Thanksgiving Day and Black Friday were atypically strong online sales days this year, and Cyber Monday has continued that trend by outperforming the season-to-date average growth rate and matching last year's record day of $887 million in online spending."
The good news doesn't stop there. Cyber Monday also saw an increase in the number of buyers, ComScore found. The total number of online buyers grew 6 percent to 8.7 million people. That said, the average amount each person spent dropped 2 percent to $102.19.
True to the day's origins, the majority of sales originated from work computers. The company found that 52.7 percent of all purchases were completed in the office. Just 41.6 percent of shoppers picked up items from home, ComScore said.
ComScore wasn't the only company reporting strong numbers this week. eBay said that Cyber Monday transactions outpaced Black Friday's by a whopping 35 percent. More than 2.4 million transactions were completed on Black Friday and Cyber Monday, eBay said. The site even has a heat-map graphic that shows how the transactions pored in over the course of those days.
ComScore and eBay's data follows another strong report from marketing-optimization company Coremetrics, which said earlier this week that sales were up 13.7 percent at some online retailers that it received data from.
Now that Black Friday and Cyber Monday are just a memory, the holiday season is in full swing. For those of us who like to be organized when we hit the stores, creating a shopping list is really the best way to go.
Unfortunately, though, there aren't many services that do a great job at creating those shopping lists. Too often, they provide very simple functionality. Realizing that, I've compiled a handful of services that do perform well for anyone looking to get organized this holiday-shopping season. In this list, you'll find a few sites and a few iPhone apps to check out.
Let's get started.
Get your shopping on
Amazon Shopping List Not to be confused with the company's Wishlist, Amazon's shopping list helps you keep track of all the products you want to buy.
Overall, Amazon's Shopping List is useful. It's not the best service in this roundup, but it if you're looking for simple, one-click experience, Amazon's tool provides it. That said, I should note that you can't simply add any product on Amazon to the list. Unfortunately, I could only find items that could be added in the grocery, beauty, gourmet food, and health and personal care pages. Even then, not all the products listed in those categories were capable of being added to the shopping list. It was a little disappointing. But if you're a heavy Amazon customer who shops in those categories, try it out. If not, there are some better services out there.
My Amazon shopping list needs more products!
(Credit: Screenshot by Don Reisinger/CNET)Boxedup Boxedup is one of my favorite services in this roundup. It makes it quick and easy to find products anywhere from the Web and add those to a shopping list.
When you start using Boxedup, you'll need to download a Boxedup button that's added to your browser (I was using Firefox, which it works well with). From there, simply go out to any online retail site and click on the Boxedup button when you want to add the item to your shopping list. Upon doing so, it's added to your Boxedup list for later viewing. You can also add items to your profile right from the Boxedup page, but to be quite honest, that's not how the service was designed and that functionality is a little suspect. Regardless, having the option to add content to your list from just about anywhere on the Web is fantastic. Boxedup works quite well. Check it out.
Boxedup helps you add content from just about anywhere.
(Credit: Screenshot by Don Reisinger/CNET)Don Reisinger is a technology columnist who has written about everything from HDTVs to computers to Flowbee Haircut Systems. Don is a member of the CNET Blog Network, and posts at The Digital Home. He is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure.
Despite the recession, people are expected to be in a charitable mood this holiday season, as they shop online.
In the United States, cumulative online donations to charities could hit more than $4 billion during the holidays, according to a survey released Tuesday by marketing firm Convio. More than than 63 percent of those surveyed said they plan to donate money via the the Internet over the holiday season (November 1 through December 31, 2009), up from 51 percent in 2008.
Convio's "North American Technographics Omnibus Online Survey" for the fourth quarter of 2009 found that despite tough financial times, almost 6 out of 10 people questioned plan to give the same amount of money or more compared with last year, while only 23 percent plan to give less.
Convio, which helps nonprofit organizations with marketing and fund-raising, stressed the importance of an online presence for charities. The survey discovered that charity Web sites have the biggest influence on a consumer's decision of whether to donate (44 percent), followed by word of mouth (40 percent).
About 56 percent of those surveyed believe that nonprofits have made it easier to donate online, while 46 percent think that charity Web sites make it easy to find the information they need in order to decide whether to give. And 39 percent said they made an online donation after visiting a nonprofit's Web site.
"Despite the difficult economy, American consumers will be going online in record numbers to support charitable causes in the final four weeks of the year," Convio CEO Gene Austin said in a statement. "As we enter the critical holiday giving season, charities that have focused on their online fund-raising and marketing programs stand to benefit from the changing demographics and behaviors of today's consumer. The Internet provides a cost-effective and efficient channel to engage consumers and allow a charity's most ardent supporters to help tell the story."
To ask questions about online support for nonprofits and compile survey results for the study, conducted from October to November 2009, Convio commissioned Forrester's Technographics. Convio's projections for U.S. online spending during the holiday season are based on the survey results, data from its own clients, and other industry studies.
eBay is playing virtual Santa this holiday season with a free "Deals" app for the iPhone that leads consumers to the better buys on the auction site.
Launched Tuesday, eBay Deals is designed to deliver a stream of the best deals on the site from across hundreds of millions of listings. Like eBay Mobile, the company's regular iPhone app, Deals lets you search, shop, and pay for your items from your iPhone or iPod Touch.
All featured deals spotlight items with no bids, no reserve price, free or fixed-rate shipping, and less than four hours remaining to bid.
You can browse deals across eight categories, including apparel, computers, electronics, and collectibles. If you spot a deal you like, just tap on it, and its listing pops up where you can watch it or bid on it. Not crazy about the current deals? Just shake your iPhone or iPod Touch, and a new set of deals appears.
If you spot a deal that may be better for someone else, you can e-mail it or share it via your Facebook or Twitter account.
Besides browsing eBay's virtual aisles, you can search for your own deals by entering a product name, category, and price range. You can save your customized search results to return to them later.
Starting Friday, eBay will also be unveiling a "12 Days of Deals" feature promoting a new promotion each day until December 8. Friday's deal will offer Samsung's N120 Netbook.
"As the world's leading online marketplace we have insights into how people really want to shop...and they clearly want to shop on their phones," eBay Marketplaces President Lorrie Norrington said in a statement.
Though designed for the mobile crowd, eBay's daily deals can also be found online at the auction site's Deals page.
eBay has been busy lately sprucing up its mobile auction site for the holidays. The vendor recently added social networking to its eBay Mobile app, letting you share a listing through e-mail, Facebook, or Twitter.
Since its launch in 2008, eBay's mobile app has been downloaded more than 5 million times, said the company. With a purchase made every two seconds, the company said, more than $500 million worth of items are likely to be traded through eBay mobile this year.
Correction at 7:25 a.m. PST November 12: This article incorrectly stated the percentages of consumers planning to use social media and mobile phones to assist in their holiday shopping. Seventeen percent of consumers who were surveyed plan to use social media to help them shop, and 19 percent plan to use their mobile phones.
If you're looking for just the right gift for Aunt Sally, you may find yourself turning to social networks and your mobile phone this holiday-shopping season.
More consumers expect that these two aspects of technology will help lead the way this year, according to a recent survey from consulting firm Deloitte.
Deloitte, which surveyed more 10,000 consumers for its 24th annual holiday-shopping survey, drillled down on technology's effect on buying habits by releasing new statistics on Wednesday.
The survey found that 17 percent of consumers plan to use social media during the holidays. Of that 17 percent chunk, 53 percent plan to use social media to research gift ideas, 52 percent intend to check the wish lists of relatives and friends on social networks, and 60 percent plan to hunt for discounts and sales using social networks.
Mobile phones are also becoming a tool for bargain-hungry shoppers.
Among those surveyed, 19 percent plan to use their mobile phones to assist in holiday shopping. Of that 19 percent chunk, 55 percent expect to use their phones to find store locations, 45 percent to research prices, 40 percent to seek product information, 32 percent to find discounts, and 25 percent to buy a holiday gift.
The good, old Internet still rates as a top spot for holiday shoppers, with 22 percent saying they'll shop primarily online this year and 44 percent expecting to use a coupon they find online.
Online research is big for key purchases, with 39 percent saying they read reviews of stores or products written by other consumers and 34 percent indicating that such online reviews influence their buying decisions more than advertising.
The relationship between brick-and-mortar stores and their Web sites seems to be symbiotic. Among those questioned, 65 percent said they've purchased an item online after finding it in a store or catalog, while 78 percent said they've bought a product in a store after seeing it on the store's site.
"Consumers are turning to mobile, online and social media during their entire holiday shopping experience," Stacy Janiak, a Deloitte vice chairman, said in a statement. "Retailers should consider harnessing this activity to turn browsers into buyers with one-click access to coupons, promotions and purchasing tools. This year's leaner in-store inventories may also open the door for retailers to lure customers to their online channels where it is easier to access inventory, no matter where it is located."
Commissioned by Deloitte, the survey was conducted online by an independent research firm between September 24 and October 2 and included responses from 10,878 consumers.
Retail e-commerce posted its first quarterly decline in at least eight years, during the normally robust fourth-quarter holiday shopping season, according to a report released Thursday by ComScore.
During the fourth quarter, retail e-commerce sales fell by 3 percent to $38 billion, compared with a year ago.
"I thought things would be flat, so this was a little worse than I thought," said Gian Fulgoni, ComScore chairman.
He attributed part of the decline to fewer post-Thanksgiving shopping days in November last year, compared with the same time in the previous year when there was nearly one full additional week.
Retail e-commerce, however, was up 6 percent for 2008, compared with the previous year. And within the various e-commerce sectors, video games, consoles, and accessories--historically the strongest performer for the past few years--posted a 29 percent year-over-year increase.
(Credit:
ComScore Inc.)
Music, movies, and videos, excluding those that are downloaded, fell 23 percent for the year, marking the worst performing category. Fulgoni noted that that category has historically performed the worst among the e-commerce categories.
Office supplies, which declined 10 percent, and jewelry, which fell 12 percent, posted gains over the past years, but this time around moved into the red as the recession took a number of companies out and made disposable income scarce.
And Fulgoni surmised that the 8 percent decline in online book sales could be tied to fewer people traveling by airplane and needing reading material to take on board.
While the fourth quarter marked the first time retail e-commerce sales encountered a quarterly decline, the industry has been posting shrinking sequential growth on a quarterly basis since the fourth quarter 2007.
"Gasoline and food prices began to go up with inflation in the fourth quarter of 2007, sucking away disposable income," said Fulgoni, who noted disposable income is predominately used for online purchases.
Staples such as groceries and necessities like fuel and energy are largely sold offline and, as a result, helped to prop up total retail sales during late 2007 and the first half of 2008, while growth in retail e-commerce sales continued to decline, Fulgoni said.
ComScore expects to release its January retail e-commerce results next week and Fulgoni said he's keeping his fingers crossed a little bit of growth will be reflected in the results.
"Gasoline prices are beginning to drop and that may put a little money in people's pockets," Fulgoni said. "But what may hurt us is the growing unemployment rate."
Amazon.com beat Wall Street's fourth-quarter revenue and earnings expectations, as the e-commerce giant posted strong holiday sales amid a weak economy.
Amazon's revenues jumped 18 percent to $6.7 billion for the quarter compared with the same period a year earlier. Wall Street had been expecting Amazon to generate sales of $6.4 billion for the quarter, according to Thomson Reuters.
The company reported a 9 percent increase in net income to $225 million for the quarter, or 52 cents a share. Wall Street was expecting a net profit of 50 cents a share, excluding stock options expenses.
Amazon stock rose 7.5 percent to $53.75 a share in after-hours trading.
"We're particularly grateful for the unusually strong demand for Kindle in the fourth quarter," Jeff Bezos, Amazon CEO, said in a statement in reference to the company's electronic reader.
During the fourth quarter, Amazon reported an 18 percent increase in U.S. and Canadian sales, compared to the same time a year ago.
Worldwide sales of its electronics and general merchandise climbed 31 percent to $2.89 billion in the quarter, compared with its performance a year ago.
Facing a tight economic climate and strong dollar overseas, eBay reported on Wednesday a 7 percent revenue drop in the fourth quarter and weaker net profits.
Shares of eBay, in after-hours trading, fell 6.25 percent to $12.45. The stock rose nearly 6 percent to close at $13.28 a share during regular trading.
The online auction giant reported revenue of $2.07 billion, down 7 percent from a year ago. That figure fell short of analysts' expectations of $2.12 billion in revenue.
eBay's net income, meanwhile, fell nearly 31 percent to $367 million in the fourth quarter, or 29 cents a share, compared with net income of $531 million, or 39 cents a share, a year earlier. Excluding charges, the company posted non-GAAP net profits of $524 million, or 41 cents a share, beating Wall Street's expectations of 39 cents a share profit, according to Thomson Reuters.
eBay CEO John Donahoe said in a statement:
While the holiday season was tough and competitive, our overall results for 2008 were strong.
For 2008, we delivered double-digit revenue and earnings growth; made significant changes in our eBay business; and built a stronger, more diverse portfolio of leading e-commerce businesses. We will build on our strengths in 2009 while managing our business prudently in the continued challenging environment.
