“Though shoppers are still cautious about spending this holiday season, they seem to be increasing the dollars they spend online while decreasing the amount they spend at stores.” This was the report from The New York Times Bits Blog as of yesterday.
The report went on to say, “On Black Friday, the big day for offline shopping, more shoppers went to stores but they spent about the same amount as last year. Final sales numbers for Cyber Monday, the popular online shopping day, will come in over the next couple of days, but they appear to be up from last year.”
The LA Times Tech Blog says “It seems buyers were more efficient this year, spending 10% less time browsing than last year, with the average shopping session lasting 7.5 minutes, down 51 seconds from 2008. Peak browsing time: between 9 a.m. and 10 a.m. PST, just as West Coasters were sliding into work and East Coasters were starting their lunch breaks.”
GSI Commerce, which provides e-commerce technology to hundreds of Internet retailers, including Toys “R” Us and Ralph Lauren, reported that shoppers spent 50 percent more on Cyber Monday than they did last year, and 26 percent more over the long holiday weekend.
Online shopping is still just a fraction of total retail, but it’s expected to increase 5.4 percent while offline spending is expected to decline 1 percent. Sixty-nine percent of adult Internet users plan to make a holiday purchase online this year, compared to 55 percent last year and 49 percent in 2007, according to Shop.org.
The reasons: shopping online is more convenient than driving to a busy mall, it’s easier to compare prices with internet speed and most sites are offering holiday discounts and some form of free shipping.
Tags: Internet Speed, Online Shopping