U.S. Web Shoppers' Holiday Spending Up
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Online consumers in the United States spent &#36;8.8 billion, excluding travel purchases, in November, a 19 percent jump over the &#36;7.4 billion spent online a year earlier, a report released on Monday said.
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The latest shopping Web sites and a cellphone have become indispensable tools for holiday shoppers.
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(InfoWorld) - Santa Claus may take online orders this year, but the Grinches will also be on the Internet. Holiday shopping online is expected toÂ reach new peaksÂ this year, and with the surge comes concern over the safety of transactions, according to technology services company EDS and the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC), both of which have issued guidelines for Web shoppers. U.S. shoppers are expected to buy about 25 percent of their holiday goods online this year, with a typical shopper spending nearly $800, according to the National Retail Federation. But various vendors and consumer groups have issued warnings for online shoppers because a likelihood of fraud accompanies the increase of buying online. Internet-related fraud cost an estimated $340 million last year, the FTC said. EDS and the FTC cautioned that online shoppers should: -- Know your retailer. Stick with reputable businesses with contact numbers and physical addresses. Some Web sites display seals that vouch for their security, but these can also be faked. -- Use secure Web sites. Sites that use encryption to protect data should display "https://" rather than "http://" in the address bar. Secure sites should also display a padlock symbol to show that the Web site has a secure, encrypted connection. EDS advises against sending a retailer more information than they need to complete a purchase. -- Be aware of phishing e-mail. Most people have received fraudulent e-mail asking for personal information. Never send information and never click on links in such e-mails, which are likely to be directed to look-alike Web sites designed to harvest identity and financial details. It's safe to type a Web site address into a browser. Reputable businesses do not ask for information through e-mails. -- Review privacy and security policies. Most companies will tell you what information they collect and how they use it. Also, foreign Web sites may be bound by different laws for how they can handle your personal information. -- Use antivirus and firewall software. -- Check your credit report and credit card balances regularly. The FTC Web site has a page devoted to holiday shopping tips, including those for online shoppers. Â
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U.S. online retailers rang up holiday sales of $23.2B between Nov. 1 and Dec. 26, up 25% from the same period in 2003, according to a survey released today by Goldman Sachs, Harris Interactive and Nielsen/NetRatings.
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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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The first raw data on Internet usage yesterday indicate shoppers rode heavy on the net. But there's one important question outstanding: Were those shoppers also purchasers?
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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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US consumer spending picks up again, official figures show, but retailers are still  concerned about Christmas spending.
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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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Women will spend more online on Christmas gifts than men for the first time, according to Nielsen NetRatings.
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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.
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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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US consumers spend more as the holiday shopping season starts but fewer people head to the shops, research shows.
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Online holiday shoppers this year are making cash registers jingle and meeting analysts&#39; expectations as they spent $8.8 billion in November, researchers said Monday.
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U.S. shoppers, doing their thing in the comforts of home, spent nearly $670 million buying over the Internet in a one-day binge last week.
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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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Spending by Americans shopping  online during this year's holiday season rose 24 percent from a  year earlier to $8.8 billion, with sharp gains in purchases of  clothing and entertainment, Web company VeriSign Inc. VRSN.O  said on Thursday.