The online push from Black Friday continued into Cyber Monday. Coremetrics, a web analytics company, found that sales were up 19.6% year-over-year as of 1:00 PM Monday. Online may account for only 10% of spending during the holiday season (7% overall), but it remains the bright spot in what has been a lackluster kickoff to the holiday season.
Black Friday spending was up only 0.5% this year, though Black Friday online spending jumped 35%. For Friday and Saturday, ShopperTrak reports that retail sales were up 0.9% to $16.77 billion, while customer traffic dropped 2.7%.
Cyber Monday deals have been set to last for several days, with Black Friday-caliber specials being used to lure shoppers to websites in the hopes that they'll click and buy. Target (TGT), Amazon (AMZN) and Wal-Mart (WMT) have been pushing online deals since Thanksgiving, earlier in some cases. Target, for example, offered a steep price cut on the Garmin GPS system, while Amazon slashed the price on the Apple (AAPL) iPod Touch. Netbooks and flat-screen televisions moved, but home décor and appliances were among the leaders.
Sucharita Mulpuru of Forrester Research expects online holiday sales to increase 8% this year to $44.7 billion. Forecasts for all retail sales this holiday season range from a decline of 3% to an increase of 2%.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
12-01-2009 @ 8:37AM
Beltway Greg said...
Keep buying that Amazon kids. It's money in the bank on the downside and unlike Mick Jagger I will not be coming to your emotional rescue but I will take your money.