With One Week Left in Peak Holiday Online Shopping Season Sales Up 18 Percent from Last Year

The peak holiday shopping season for retailers is quickly coming to a close. Through December 14th of this year online retailers have received $22 billion from online shoppers during the holiday season. Traditionally the busiest shopping time of the holiday season for online retailers is December 5 through December 15.Thanks to free shipping offers, the season should go through the 18th. Despite this increase in sales this year, the growth rate for online retailers holiday sales numbers is lower than the increase last holiday season saw. This is according to a recent press release from comScore, Inc.

"Despite the storng surge in spending we observed at the beginning of last wee, with both Monday and Tuesday easily surpassing $800 million in sales and showing very strong growth rates, the remainder of the week saw more modest spending," Gian Fulgoni, who is the Chairman of comScore commented. "However, we anticipate that spending at the beginning of this week will again be strong with most free shipping deals available until Tuesday, December 18.", continued Fulgoni.

This year's 18 percent increase over last year's sales volume is slower than last year. Last year the sales volume increase compared with 2005's online sales volume was an increase of 26 percent. The press release indicates a possible reason for this decrease in sales growth rate in online sales this holiday season could be due to lower spending increases by households with incomes less than $50,000. This year families with incomes of $50,000 or less are only spending 10 percent more online than they did last year. Families with incomes that range from $50,000 to $100,000 are spending 17 percent more than they did last year online. The market is being driven by those with over $100,000 in income as they are spending 28 percent more this year online than they did last year online.

The online holiday shopping season typically ends slightly earlier than the brick and mortar shopping season for several reasons. One of them is due to having items shipped, for them to arrive in time for Christmas they must be ordered close to a week in advance of the holiday. Meanwhile with brick and mortar retailers, the customer can go to the store and purchase items as late as Christmas Eve as most shopping malls and other retailers have limited hours on Christmas Eve for those last minute shoppers. While in most years the majority of shoppers would have completed their online shopping by the December 15th weekend, the press release indicates this year's free shipping offers by many online retailers have extended that deadline slightly.

SOURCES:

Prnewswire.com. "Online Holiday Retail Spending Surpasses $22 Billion, Up 18 Percent Versus Year Ago, as Retailers Prepare for Final Week of Pre-Christmas Shopping".
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