'Blue Monday' Kicks Off Online Shopping Season
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Though U.S. consumers spent the  weekend setting records at brick-and-mortar stores for Black  Friday, they returned to work on Monday to set "Blue Monday"  shopping records online.
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Online retailer declares ''best ever'' holiday season, offers snapshot of season's sales activity.
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U.S. retailers were hopeful on Monday  that a dusting of snow on the East Coast would put consumers in  the Christmas shopping mood after what has so far been a ho-hum  holiday sales season.
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Computer-savvy consumers did plenty of online shopping over the Thanksgiving weekend, giving companies like Amazon.com and walmart.com the same kickoff to the holiday season as department stores and malls had.
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By Mick Zawislak Daily Herald Staff Writer  The holiday shopping season has begun and many purchases will be made online. Finding merchants you can trust and taking steps to protect your privacy are important this time of year, according to the Chicago Better Business Bureau.
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(InfoWorld) - The 2006 holiday shopping period got off to a strong start over the weekend, according to several e-commerce operators. The Friday after the Thanksgiving holiday is typically seen as the start of the holiday sales season in the U.S. and retail outlets across the nation see some of the largest crowds of the year on that day. In recent years, online retailers also report strong traffic on the day. While consumers may be opening their wallets to online retailers like never before, there's also evidence they are after bargains like never before. Two online price comparison sites, which point consumers to the lowest prices for various items, reported surging traffic. Pricegrabber.com said it's seen a 45 percent increase year-over-year in referrals to merchants for November to date. In some categories, including toys, sporting goods and apparel, the amount of traffic sent to retailers by Pricegrabber has more than doubled, it said. Rival site Shopping.com reported a 40 percent jump in November-to-date referrals to online retailers and said hot categories include kids and family, home and garden, and clothing and accessories. Despite the strong traffic, Monday is likely to be busier, said Shopping.com. Last year visitors to the site peaked between noon and 2 p.m. on Monday. Two of the season's hottest holiday gift items, the recently-launched PlayStation 3 and Wii games consoles, have been selling fast on Ebay. In the week to Nov. 24, 14,675 PlayStation 3 and 26,708 Wii consoles were sold through the site. The average price of the PS3 was US$1,186.39 while the Wii fetched an average $412.53, according to eBay Marketplace Research. Both prices are well above their suggested retail prices. Other hot electronics items include the Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. BDP-1000 Blu-ray Disc player and Apple Computer Inc.'s iPod nano and iPod Shuffle, the company said.
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Spending by Americans shopping online  during this year's holiday season rose 24 percent to $8.8  billion, with sharp gains in purchases of clothing and  entertainment, Web company VeriSign Inc. VRSN.O said on  Thursday.
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Life & style: Skip the carnage on the high street and shop the sales online with Kate Carter's picks of the best deals
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InfoWorld - 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.
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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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Internet retailer announces its best holiday season; electronics were the key.
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Retailers may be in for a blue  Christmas this year as worries about soaring energy prices,  consumers' cost-consciousness and a warmer December than last  year make for lackluster holiday sales, retail analysts said.
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Online shops look set to have a good Christmas as UK web-users get the online buying habit.
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Bargain hunters tracking down sought-after toys and electronics flocked to the Web ahead of "Cyber Monday," the unofficial start of the online holiday shopping season, three Internet sites said on Saturday.
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Online shopping has become hugely popular among Britons in the run-up to Christmas, research suggests.
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Fueled by Web searches for iPods, Elmos, gift cards and video game consoles, online retailers are expecting sales to increase by about 20 percent this year.
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Consumers in the United States are already spending record amounts of money online. One e-commerce company has a novel way to help Net shoppers hunt for bargains this holiday season.