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Suddenly, Amazon Doesn't Love Its Moms Anymore
We all know that the current economic slowdown was bound to hurt holiday spending, and today we get news of just how much an impact it had on online shopping, as comScore announced that shoppers spent 3% less this year compared with 2007.The report was based on spending between November 1 and December 23, and showed that consumers spent $25.5 billion online, compared with $26.3 billion in the same period last year, another clear signal that people are cutting their spending because they are worried about the economy.
A bright spot in the report did show that Cyber Monday, the Monday immediately following Black Friday, was the second biggest day ever for online spending, with an increase of 15% in sales from last year, to $846 million in sales.
Let's take a look at traffic for some of the big players:
- eBay (NASDAQ: EBAY) : Holiday traffic for the popular e-commerce site was still the largest for any online site, but its holiday traffic was down by 4% in December. (Read more about eBay's holiday season and reader response from our earlier post on the subject.);
- Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN): Amazon saw its December traffic jump by 7% as it benefited from many eBay users defecting to its site in order to take advantage of fixed pricing;
- Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL): Apple's online site saw a nice jump in December with a traffic boost of 19%;
- Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT) : December was also a good month for Wal-Mart's e-commerce site, which had a modest, but respectable 4% increase in visitor traffic.
Where did you do your Christmas shopping this past holiday season? Did you brave the malls and stores, or preferred to stay at home and take care of your shopping from the comfort of your home? If you did shop from home, which online sites did you find yourself visiting the most, and have the best experience dealing with?
Let us hear about your holiday shopping experience!
Michael Fowlkes has worked as a stock trader for seven years and spent the last four years working as an analyst for the online investment advisory service Investor's Observer.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
1-01-2009 @ 12:56AM
Free Printable Coupons said...
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1-01-2009 @ 5:21PM
Jessy Scholl said...
True online shopping was down, but that was due to eBay. In less than one year, the site managed to transform itself from a good site where anybody could make a buck or find that unique item, to a site that has crap that is overpriced. Meanwhile, John Donahoe has made changes that caused many sellers to seek new venues. You can read my rant at the Not a very Merry Christmas at eBay post for more details.
1-05-2009 @ 2:42PM
Tom said...
I didn't cut my holiday spending, I spent more this year. I wanted to do 100% of it on Ebay, but did zero on Ebay. Reasons? It has nothing to do with the economy or fixed price. Ebay has made new policy changes such as to it's feedback which have ruined the buying experience. They are also very rude and lack customer service. They refuse to do things which are listed on their site that they will. I have been buying on there since the 90s. I know alot of sellers(they also buy!) are leaving, but buyers (like me) are leaving too. It's no wonder they are down(stocks and traffic) when other web sites are up.