Home Shoppers Do Their Hunting Online
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By Noelle Knox  If there's any lingering doubt about how the Internet is transforming the way people buy and sell homes, here's eye-widening proof: Marnie Azadian and her husband just moved from Scottsdale, Ariz., into a $410,000 home in Tulsa that they bought 100% over the Internet.
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U.S. buyers shopped aggressively online on Monday and Tuesday of this week, spending significantly more than they did on the comparable days last year, according to comScore.Online retail spending hit $700 million on Monday, up 33 percent from last year, and $670 million on Tuesday, up 25 percent, the Web-monitoring company said Thursday.During the first 48 days of the holiday shopping season -- Nov. 1 to Dec. 18 -- U.S. shoppers have spent almost $25 billion in online retail purchases, up 19 percent from the same period last year, according to comScore.As Christmas day approaches, the intensity of online shopping will ease up, although late-shipping deals, in-store pickup options and price reductions should keep growth rates strong in the remainder of the holiday season, comScore said.The company expects online spending during the holidays to reach $29.5 billion, which would represent a 20 percent increase over the 2006 season.Meanwhile, Nielsen Online said Wednesday that a majority of online shoppers it surveyed reported being either &quot;very satisfied&quot; or &quot;somewhat satisfied&quot; with the customer support they received from online shopping Web sites.Nielsen Online&#39;s survey found that of the 46 percent of respondents who had posted or planned to post reviews about their online shopping experience, 88 percent said those reviews were, or would be, positive.Netflix topped the survey&#39;s customer satisfaction list, having been rated &quot;very satisfied&quot; by 90.3 percent of respondents, and was followed by comparison-shopping site NexTag.com (87 percent), giant e-tailer Amazon.com (86.6 percent), Yahoo Shopping (84.3 percent) and Kohls.com (84.1 percent). Rounding out the top 10 were Barnesandnoble.com, HomeDepot.com, Circuitcity.com, eBay.com, and JCPenney.com.On the other end of the spectrum, sites that in recent days have been flagged for buckling under the strong holiday-season traffic include Mastercard.com and Macys.com.Macys.com&#39;s home page faced slowdowns throughout Tuesday, taking, at its worst, about 38 seconds to load, compared with the usual 2 seconds, according to Web site uptime and availability tracker Gomez.Apparently, while experiencing availability problems, Macys.com has been serving up a page telling shoppers that the site is crowded and that they have to wait until traffic decreases in order to be let in. An apparent screenshot of this page was posted by The Consumerist blog on Tuesday.Meanwhile, Mastercard.com has racked up downtime of almost five hours between Nov. 9 and Dec. 20, equivalent to uptime of 99.5 percent for that period, according to Pingdom, which also tracks Web site performance. As such, Mastercard.com has performed significantly worse than sites from competing credit-card companies like Discover, Visa, Diners Club, and American Express, all of which have had uptime above 99.9 percent during this period, Pingdom said Thursday.Neither Macy&#39;s nor MasterCard immediately responded to requests for comment.
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Life & style: Picture gallery: We've scoured the web for the best deals, from Fairtrade cotton to handcrafted jewellery.
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Easy shopping online makes custom inspectors' jobs tougher.
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Retailers are increasingly offering ways for consumers to shop online but pick up their goods in stores, letting customers avoid shipping costs.
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Millions of British consumers are expected to spend Christmas Day shopping online for bargains.
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Architects who sell their designs on the Web say that the second-home shopper is a sought-after customer.
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It&#39;s a great time to be an Internet shopper, but the same search technology that is transforming the Web into a bargain-hunter&#39;s paradise is putting the squeeze
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Local and Shopping Search Are Growing Among Internet Users  According to a recent consumer search behavior study conducted by BizRate.com and The Kelsey Group of 3,887 online respondents, findings show that while general search engines rank the highest in terms of usage, with 72 percent indicating they use general search engines ...
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Shoppers visiting HomeDepot.com have been able to search for and view detailed content on home appliances on the site - now, they can order directly from the site as well.
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The venerable retailer finally gets apparel and home furnishings online. Does it matter?
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Slackers, rejoice! Remote controls can now be used to shop from home.
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The Holy Grail of Internet shopping is being able to go online, click a few times, and find the exact product or service you want at the best possible price.
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The Internet holiday shopping  season got off to a hotter start this year, with "Cyber Monday"  the top day ever for online sales and the long Thanksgiving  weekend a busy time for browsing ahead of buying, both online  and in stores, researchers said on Wednesday.
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For those pushing their way through the Black Friday crowds on the year&#39;s busiest shopping day, this is the year they may resolve to join the record number of online shoppers.
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Where the shoppers are and what they're finding.
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Nearly 50 percent of Internet users have searched for their own name online, but few regularly monitor their online presence with great regularity. Even more people -- 53 percent of Internet users to be exact -- have searched online for information about personal and business contacts.