Holiday Shoppers Off to a Fast Start
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Holiday shoppers spent 10 percent more Friday than they did a year ago, according to early reports, but Wal-Mart Stores Inc. dampened hopes for a strong start to the key retail season by
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A traditional day of feasting with family turned into a day of early holiday shopping for some, as retailers offered more options &#151; both online and in stores &#151; than ever this Thanksgiving.
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Retailers benefited from a last-minute holiday shopping spree, putting them on track to meet modest seasonal sales goals, two groups that track consumer spending reported Tuesday.
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Holiday shoppers, intent on finding bargains, descended on the Washington region's malls this morning, joining a nationwide shopping spree that has come to be known as Black Friday.
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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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NEW YORK -- The first holiday shopping weekend of the year may have started with a bang, but it ended with a whimper, evidence from two groups that track sales showed yesterday.
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The holiday shopping season is off to a running start, according to surveys released this weekend, though it was still unclear how that will impact retailers' profits.
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Americans are ready to put "Merry Christmas" back into holiday shopping, a new poll shows.
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In a bid to get consumers shopping early, the nation's retailers are serving up even more early bird specials on such items as TVs and toys, expanding their shopping hours and offering other enticements as they usher the official start of the holiday season on Friday.
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With just hours to go before Christmas, the nation&#39;s retailers hoped a last-minute flurry of holiday shoppers, whether delayed by winter storms or by simple procrastination, would be enough
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Holiday shoppers, intent on finding bargains, descended on the region's shopping centers Friday. But, in what could be a worrisome sign for retailers, many consumers vowed to watch their wallets closely.
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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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Retailers got what they wanted over the Thanksgiving weekend &#151; a strong start to the 2006 holiday shopping season as consumers crowded stores in search of huge discounts on flat-screen TVs and other hot merchandise.
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A steady stream of last-minute shoppers let retailers feeling a little blue over a slow holiday shopping season see a little more green.
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Where the shoppers are and what they're finding.
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Consumers are breaking out their wallets on the brink of what should be a robust holiday shopping season, several reports suggested yesterday.
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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.