Late Shoppers Help Online Retailers Sell More
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When it comes to shopping, Debbie Christian is a classic procrastinator.
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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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With the 2007 run-up to Christmas boosted by a last-minute sales surge, retailers are putting an extra emphasis on after-Christmas discounts, hoping bargain shoppers and gift-card splurgers can enrich stores' holidays.
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Despite generous discounting and expanded shopping hours earlier in the season, many stores are finding themselves in the same predicament as in recent years: waiting for those last-minute shoppers in the final days before Christmas who seem to be procrastinating even more than a year ago.
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Reports that shoppers are leaving it late in the hope of finding festive bargains may be borne out by new High Street data.
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UK shoppers left their Christmas shopping late this year, but there was a seasonal rush in the last 10 days, retailers say.
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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.
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Last-minute shoppers who hoped to beat the flood of Christmas-crazed gift buyers woke before dawn every day this week and arrived at retailers the moment they opened.
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Last-minute shoppers may have helped retailers save a holiday shopping season that got off to a sluggish start, pouring into stores the week before Christmas and continuing their buying frenzy the day after the holiday.
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As post-Christmas retail results began trickling in yesterday, this much became clear about the 2004 holiday shopping season: Consumers procrastinated; they gobbled up gift cards; they defected, in greater numbers, from stores to the Web; and, overall, they appeared to spend more this year than last.
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Online retailers say they are ready to deliver goods to Christmas shoppers who waited until the last minute.
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Postmidnight buyers -- who include insomniacs, night owls and people who like to work late -- seem to be taking advantage of high-speed Internet access in the home.
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Stores report long queues as shoppers hunt post-Christmas bargains
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The nation's shoppers Â taking advantage of deep discounts and expanded hours Â jammed stores over the last weekend before Christmas to try to grab a hard-to-find Wii or scoop up bargains on other items. But the spending surge may not be enough to offset what is shaping up to be a mediocre December for some retailers.
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It's a great time to be an Internet shopper, but the same search technology that is transforming the Web into a bargain-hunter's paradise is putting the squeeze on online retailers doling out discounts and incentives to lure customers.
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In spite of a burst of Friday spending, the holiday shopping season got off to a sluggish start, forcing retailers to reassess their strategies for luring buyers. Slow sales reported by three retail sales trackers on Tuesday were blamed on higher fuel costs and an overall lack of confidence in the economy.
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Online buying continues to snowball, according to the results of a recent America Online survey. This year, for the first time, Americans who regularly use the Internet for shopping -- researching