E-tailers start holiday season earlier: study
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U.S. retailers are starting their  holiday Internet marketing campaigns earlier this year, rolling  out promotions as much as two months before Christmas,  according to a study to be released on Wednesday.
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Internet retailer announces its best holiday season; electronics were the key.
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By Andria Cheng  U.S. retailers like Wal-Mart Stores and Federated Department Stores are pushing Internet sales this holiday season with Web site overhauls and increased investment - and for good reason.
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E-tailers have laggards and penny-pinchers to thank for last week&#39;s brisk sales, which grew 25 percent over the comparable period last year, according to comScore.Procrastinators and deal-seekers helped create a &quot;flurry&quot; of online spending last week in the U.S., keeping retail e-sales strong, comScore said Sunday.Between Nov. 1 and Dec. 21 -- the first 51 days of the holiday season -- U.S. shoppers have spent $26.3 billion online, up 19 percent compared with the corresponding period last year.So far, the heaviest online shopping day this season was Dec. 10, the so-called &quot;Green Monday,&quot; a term coined by eBay for the second Monday in December, which the vendor has identified as particularly heavy e-sales day. U.S. shoppers spent $881 million that day, up 33 percent from the corresponding day in 2006.By contrast, Cyber Monday, the first workday after the Thanksgiving holiday in the U.S., ranks as this holiday season&#39;s ninth heaviest online shopping day, with $733 million in sales. Cyber Monday is considered the day when holiday online shopping kicks into high gear.Overall, comScore expects this year&#39;s holiday season to generate about $29.5 billion in online spending, which would represent a 20 percent increase from the same period in 2006.
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Online Holiday Shopping Sales Increase Sharply in 2004  The latest holiday online sales forecast numbers are up and running with predicitions all having online sales rise, anywhere from 19% to almost 30% over results from 2003. comScore Networks predicts that online consumer spending for November and December will total between $15.1 ...
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The retail sector overall may be reporting a sluggish start to the season, but holiday shoppers are scooping up tech goods at a brisk pace -- and they're scouring the Web for bargains more than ever. -washingtonpost.com
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A shopping spree before and after Christmas helped many of the nation's retailers meet their holiday sales goals, but heavy discounting to lure customers into the stores came at the expense of profits, Wall Street analysts believe.
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There are those who finish their holiday shopping by Thanksgiving. Then there are the rest of us. Here's a holiday gift guide for both planners and procrastinators.
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hoAs the holiday season wound down, U.S. residents kept on shopping significantly more than they did in 2006, particularly on the day after Christmas, but they also reported being less satisfied with e-tailers, according to a pair of studies.Between Nov. 1 and Dec. 27 -- the first 57 days of the holiday season -- U.S. shoppers spent almost $28 billion in online retail purchases, up 19 percent compared with the same period in 2006, according to comScore.Shoppers spent $545 million on Dec. 26, more than doubling the spending on that day in 2006, as they took advantage of late-season offers and discounts, according to comScore.Still, it looks like online spending growth for the 2007 holiday season will fail to meet comScore&#39;s 20 percent forecast, and fall way below the 26 percent growth registered during this period in 2006.comScore chalks up the smaller-than-expected growth to several factors, including warm weather in early November and various economic challenges this year, including higher gas prices, the real estate crunch, and a &quot;jittery&quot; stock market, the company said Sunday.Another important metric that dropped this holiday season compared with 2006&#39;s was customer satisfaction, according to ForeSee Results, a provider of online customer-satisfaction measurement services.A survey of more than 11,000 shoppers revealed that, on a 100-point scale, customer satisfaction with the largest 40 e-tailers dropped, in aggregate, to 74 points, down 1.3 points from the 2006 holiday season, according to ForeSee. It conducted the survey in conjunction with FGI Research using the methodology of the University of Michigan&#8217;s American Customer Satisfaction Index.Still, the spending growth in online shopping this holiday season, even at 19 percent, would greatly outpace the growth of overall U.S. retail holiday spending, forecast at 4 percent by the National Retail Federation.That 4 percent growth rate -- which would put 2007 holiday season retail spending in the United States at almost $475 billion -- would fall below the 10-year average of 4.8 percent and be the slowest since 2002, according to the National Retail Federation.
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Women will spend more online on Christmas gifts than men for the first time, according to Nielsen NetRatings.
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Many top eBay sellers exist only online and do all the work from home, either to supplement a full-time job or try to make a living. How do these people face the holidays?
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Online auction house eBay goes the traditional route for the holidays.
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Vendors and researchers have detected various new trends at play in online retail shopping this holiday season, such as shoppers' increased use of search engines and comparison shopping services to make better informed buying decisions. Not all trends are encouraging, however, such as a disconcertingly high percentage of shoppers willing to buy from spammers.
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The holiday shopping season ended better than it started, and most retailers are on track to meet humble sales goals, though many hope for an extra boost the week after Christmas as consumers cash in gift cards.
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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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DISPLAY WINDOWS for holiday shoppers can be found more and more on 17-inch computer screens. The number of Americans who regularly use the Internet for shopping rose dramatically this year, with one market
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Web holiday sales are up 24 percent over a year ago, says comScore. However it is believed the shopping season may extend longer online this season as consumers appear to be confident that expedient shipping would get their gifts in time.