Internet boom for gift shopping
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Online shopping has become hugely popular among Britons in the run-up to Christmas, research suggests.
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By JANE KWIATKOWSKI  Tired of cranky cashiers? Sick of ATM lines? Want to know where there are no lines?  Online -- at the Internet Mall, where you can join 115 million other shoppers this holiday season.  Shoppers use the Internet for much more than making purchases.
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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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TechWeb - From snazzy wireless e-mail solutions to jazzy camera phones, Tis The Season for gee-whiz tools and toys.
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More Britons than ever are expected to  shop online this Christmas as better delivery times, greater  ease with search engines and social networking sites like  MySpace.com fuel shopper confidence.
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Czech Republic: People spent CEK 14-15 bil for shopping via the Internet in 2006, by about 40% more than in 2005. Some specalists think that the Internet trade turnover could be even higher and reach up to CEK 20 bil/y.
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Holiday Web sales are running ahead of forecast as online gift certificates helped give Internet retailers a chance to participate in U.S. consumers' last-minute shopping spree, Internet research firm comScore Networks said on Wednesday.
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By Mark Albright, St. Petersburg Times, Fla.  Feb. 2--KISSIMMEE -- Internet shopping sales soared 24 percent to  $100-billion in 2006, but it's hardly blues skies on the industry horizon.
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Boom in internet shopping leaves many Britons waiting to pick up parcels ordered over the web
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The gift card &#151; often viewed as the little, plastic solution for keeping friends and family out of the return lines &#151; doesn't always serve as the ideal present. Responding to consumers who don't want to buy themselves another sweater, or will take a pass on a fancy steak dinner, Internet businesses have sprung up allowing people to sell or swap unwanted gift cards.
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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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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. said on Thursday.
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Tempted by lower prices and a wide selection of goods, U.S. shoppers clamored to the Web this holiday season, spending $23.2 billion, or 25 percent more than in the previous year, according to a survey released this week.
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Local.com has debuted a new online gift guide to make it easier for consumers to shop for holiday gifts in their area via Local.com, here&#8217;s some info from their press release: Online shoppers can access leading retailers through Local.com&#8217;s Holiday Shopping Guide at www.local.com/shopping.aspx.  Local.com provides information from premier retailers like Target, Toys-R-Us, Macy&#8217;s, Buy.com, [...]
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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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Holiday shoppers gravitated toward the Internet in big numbers late last year, with online retailers reaping some US&#36;23 billion from U.S. consumers. That figure marks a 25 percent increase from the &#36;18.5 billion spent online during the same period in 2003.
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Our annual special issue devoted to electronic gifts for work and play, along with a guide to the world of online shopping.