Tag: Online Retail

Facebook Proving to Be an Excellent E-Commerce Tool For the Holidays

If you had any question about whether or not Facebook can be effective for e-commerce, you might be interested in new data the company has shared with us regarding the time period from Black Friday through Cyber Monday.

"This holiday season, shoppers are calling the shots," Jillian Carroll of Facebook’s Corporate Communications tells WebProNews. "Companies such as Amazon, eBay, Sears, and Levi’s are rethinking online shopping by adding social context with the Like button and other Facebook integrations. While newer sites like Etsy, Yardsellr, Bing, and Kembrel are building entirely new social shopping experiences."

If you have an online shop, there’s a good chance you have some kind of Facebook presence and/or integration on your site, whether that’s the inclusion of like buttons, Facebook Connect, or just having a Facebook Page. Chances are even higher that you will this time next year.

"Since last holiday season, more than 1/2 of the top 25 retail sites have integrated with Facebook (comScore)," says Carroll. "17 of the 25 fastest growing retail sites are integrated with Facebook."

"On Black Friday, there was more than 6x the number of status updates related to retail purchases as the previous Friday," adds Carroll. "Referral traffic to the most active retailers on Facebook increased 70% over the period from Black Friday through Cyber Monday."

Just between Black Friday and Cyber Monday, Levi’s saw a 2x increase in the amount of likes and comments on their site, according to Facebook. The most-liked products during that period included 501 Original Jeans – Dark Stonewash (M), Bold Curve Boot Cut – Night Streak (F), and Regular Straight 505® Jeans – Dark Stonewash (M) if you’re interested.

Kembrel, a private store for students that can be accessed entirely through Facebook, all the way through the checkout process, saw 20% of its overall transactions come through its Facebook store from Black Friday through Cyber Monday. Transactions from their Facebook store are 7-10% bigger when compared to their site, according to Facebook. 55% of new, registered shopers are being acquired through Facebook. Pretty impressive.

We’re likely to see more businesses following Kembrel’s model of letting customers go through the entire shopping process directly on Facebook. Look for Facebook to turn itself into one of the standard payment methods in the not-too-distant future. This should fuel e-commerce directly within Facebook, while also potentially having a significant impact on it externally.

Related:

Facebook E-Commerce: What Online Retailers Have Been Looking For?
The Dawn of Real Facebook eCommerce

December 3, 2010
Online Holiday Retail Sales To Reach $52 Billion

Online retail sales in the U.S. will reach nearly $52 billion this holiday season, a 16 percent increase over last years numbers, according to a new report by Forrester Research.

The 2010 growth rate is twice the rate in 2009, when holiday sales grew by 8 percent during the global recession. Forrester defines the holiday shopping season as November and December.
(more…)

November 9, 2010
Online Retail Spending reached $32 Billion In Q3

Online retail spending reached $32.1 billion in the third quarter, up nine percent over the third quarter of 2009, according to a new report from comScore.

The growth rate represents the fourth consecutive quarter of positive year-over-year growth after a year of flat or negative growth rates.

Retail e-commerce growth in the third quarter remained solid at 9 percent, a fairly positive indicator for the upcoming holiday season,” said comScore chairman Gian Fulgoni. “However, we continue to preach caution due to the continuation of high unemployment, which is creating very divergent spending patterns between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have nots.’”

“Even Americans who do have jobs still aren’t confident enough to spend freely and many are still pained by their loss of wealth since the financial crisis struck in 2008. That and a higher consumer savings rate leaves less money for spending. Until the economy begins adding jobs at a meaningful rate, the lack of spending power among consumers will continue to be a drag on purchasing, with many consumers indicating their intention to cut back on gift buying this holiday season.”

Other highlights from the report include:

*The most popular online product categories were books & magazines (excluding digital downloads), computers/peripherals, computer software, and consumer electronics.

*The top 25 online retailers accounted for 70 percent of dollars spent online, up 5.5 percentage points vs. year ago. Online “pureplay” (online only) retailers accounted for 58 percent of dollars spent online compared to 42 percent among multichannel retailers, unchanged vs. year ago.

*41 percent of online retail transactions included free shipping, down marginally from last year.

November 1, 2010
Google Launches Resource to Prepare Retailers for Holidays

Google has launched a new site called "ThinkHoliday", which counts down the days until Christmas, and provides information for businesses and marketers that will help them prepare for the holidays. According to the site, 71% of consumers have started researching their holiday purchases, and 89% of them have started shopping online.

The site is a follow-up to an event Google hosted in the summer, also called ThinkHoliday. The summit was aimed at sharing tactics and learnings to help retailers prepare for this year’s holiday season, with discussion from people like Google Director of Emerging Platforms Mike Steib, Director of Product Management Sameer Samat, Director of Google Display Network Bruce Falck, and Group Product Marketing Manager Sara Kleinberg.

"Here at Google we have a wealth of information on what consumers are searching for," the company says. "As holiday nears, check out what products are hot and how consumers are already thinking about Black Friday."

The site looks at rising searches in the last 30 days, interest over time for "Black Friday", and special trend categories like Apparel, Home Furnishings, Consumer Electronics, Cyber Monday, Toys and Promotional Offers. It also points to relevant articles.

Google says it will update the site frequently as the holiday season approaches, and that retailers should bookmark it and check back often.

There are 53 days until Christmas.

November 1, 2010
BigDeal: Scam or Great Money-Saver?

With the holidays coming up, people are going to be looking for discounts, and they’re going to be doing so online. One site, which many are likely to come across is BigDeal.com. This is an online auction site, which the company describes as "social gaming meets e-commerce" or "Zynga meets eBay". It’s claimed about 40,000 customers since launching in November of last year, and its traffic is growing steadily.

There has been a bit of controversy surrounding the site in the past. BigDeal CEO Nicolas Darveau-Garneau shared some thoughts on this controversy with WebProNews.

"There has been some confusion and misconception about how paid auction sites work and whether or not they provide a safe shopping environment for the consumer," Darveau-Garneau tells us. "We’d like consumers to know that we designed and engineered BigDeal.com from the ground up to provide them with just that. Shopping with us is fun, risk-free, and enables shoppers to win up to 95% off on brand new items – think PS3, iPod, jewelry, handbags, and more!"

Earlier this year, TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington, who had an advertising partnership with BigDeal, wrote after terminating the partnership, "BigDeal offers a service that is completely legal, and is backed by very well known venture capitalists. On the surface we shouldn’t have any issues with working with them. But the service is, in my opinion, at best misleading and at worst little more than a scam."

Judging from the comments on tha piece, Arrington is not alone in his assessment.

Darveau-Garneau says, "In a November 2009 New York Times article, journalist Brad Stone points out that BigDeal.com has ‘taken all the risk out of the bidded auction game.’ It’s a mantra we’ve had in place since our inception and we’re continuing to lead the way in this multi-million dollar industry by pioneering a number of unique features not found on other similar sites. Some of these include our ‘Loyalty Store’ concept, new social integration features, and specific shopping categories that enhance the shopper’s experience."

"The way to think about BigDeal.com is this: play a fun game to win 75%-95% off an item. If you don’t win, buy it at about the same price you would have paid anyway. We have over 50,000 paying members and have 40,000 auctions won so far, so I guess we must be doing something right!"

How BigDeal.com Works

BigDeal’s members purchase the right to bid on items. Bids cost $0.75 each. Members then compete against each other to win items. Each item begins at $0 with no reserve price, and each bid increases the price of the item by a few pennies and adds a few seconds to the countdown clock. The last one to bid wins the item at that price. The company tells us its average winner gets a 75% saving and over 50% of its winners get 90% or more off.

Members that don’t win can buy the item at its retail price. Users also receive loyalty dollars on BigDeal.com. For every $1 spent bidding on the site, they give users $1 in loyalty dollars, which can be used for large discounts in BigDeal’s loyalty store.

Auction winners are likely to get 75% or more off a brand new item, the company claims. Last week, BigDeal introduced a new version of its site, which now features new social integration and product categories.

Since TechCrunch’s article about the site, BigDeal’s uniques have done nothing but grow. As the holiday season approaches, I wouldn’t expect that to chanage in the near future.

Have you used BigDeal.com? Tell us what you think about it.

October 11, 2010
Amazon Purchases Spanish Online Retailer

Amazon.com said today it has reached an agreement to purchase Spanish Internet retailer BuyVip.com for $96.5 million.

BuyVip is a fashion and lifestyle online buying community with more than six million members in countries including Spain, Italy, Germany, Austria, the Netherlands and Portugal.

Members of BuyVip can participate in sales that run for a limited time and involve limited quantities of fashion products from over 500 brands including Tommy Hilfiger, Converse, Timberland, Pepe Jeans, and Calvin Klein. Members can purchase items for 30 to 70 percent below retail sales prices.

“BuyVIP.com offers their members an exciting selection of top fashion and lifestyle products at extraordinarily low prices,” said Greg Greeley, vice president European Retail at Amazon.

“BuyVIP.com is an excellent complement to Amazon’s European business and will provide another unique way for Amazon customers to find and discover unique and compelling products.”

The purchase is expected to be completed in the fourth quarter.

October 7, 2010
What Adobe Scene7 Update Means for Marketers and Developers
Adobe’s mobile plans are not just about Flash. The company announced an upgrade to its Scene7 offering, which has implications for both marketers and mobile developers.

Scene7 is a rich media service that lets retailers create an online catalog with video and 3D modeling (among other things). The new version includes support for mobile sites and apps, and provides expanded offerings for delivering content across mobile devices including iPhone, BlackBerry, and Android.

According to Adobe, the update will allow marketers and mobile developers to:
- Leverage one single platform to create, store, and deliver assets from, instead of developing a unique experience tailored for each device, which will reduce the cost and complexity of delivering rich media to desktop and mobile devices.
- Be able to upload and custom encode videos into Flash and non-Flash formats for optimal serving to mobile, desktop and interactive displays.
- Create content once in Scene7 and leverage the assets to deliver different and unique banner experiences using a single template.
- Marketers can now deliver variable image and Flash-based banners quickly, with and without video, reducing the time and costs for creating, modifying and publishing targeted content
- Developers can easily build and deploy rich and engaging front-end applications for greeting cards, stationery and photo products using Scene7 variable data templates (with Web-to-Print Solution Accelerator)
The announcement also includes integration with Adobe Creative Suite 5, Adobe Site Catalyst and Adobe Test&Target for automating website analytics and optimization.
September 29, 2010
Google Announces New Agreement with Bizrate Insights

Google has announced an agreement with Bizrate Insights in the US, UK, and Germany that will affect its merchants. The program will get reviews from shoppers that have completed transactions on a site. Google says this means it will provide content businesses know they can trust to help improve and promote their customer experience.

"When I was preparing to move to London a few months ago, I ended up doing a lot of shopping online for the items I knew I’d need – from a camera for capturing memories and an umbrella for the infamous drizzle to music that would go well with the cloudy skies!" says Kinnari Jhaveri of Google’s Strategic Partnerships team. "One of the tools I used to help me pick the online retailers I bought from were Google seller ratings and reviews."

"Of course, for both shoppers and merchants, it’s important that merchant reviews are coming from real users who’ve completed transactions at the online stores they’re reviewing," adds Jhaveri.

Google has been using Bizrate ratings, but now they’ll be able to include the full text of the review. Google says this means customers will be able to get the "full picture" before they buy.

September 29, 2010
Online Retailers Losing Revenue Due To Website Issues

Online retailers may have lost as much as $44 billion dollars over the past year due to transaction problems on their website, according to a new report released by Tealeaf and conducted by Harris Interactive.

The report found more than a quarter (27%) of online shoppers would turn to an online or offline competitor if they had an online transaction issue.

“The potential for lost revenue when customers have a negative online shopping experience is amplified by the rising use of social media," said Rebecca Ward, CEO of Tealeaf.

"The ‘echo chamber effect’ caused by frustrated customers who voice their displeasure on social networks can significantly damage an organization’s reputation. Proactively identifying website issues presents an opportunity for businesses to recover some of that $44 billion in potentially lost revenue, especially as we head into the upcoming holiday shopping season."

The report found if online shoppers experienced a problem while trying to conduct an online transaction, they would react in the following ways:

*66 percent contact customer service , including:

*53 percent call customer service

*36 percent email or log a web complaint with customer service

*32 percent abandon the transaction, including :

*27 percent turn to a competitor

September 27, 2010
Overstock Launches Private Sales Site

Online retailer Overstock.com has launched a private sales website today called Eziba.com.

Eziba offers exclusive deals on home decor products from a variety of popular brands. Items will be offered in daily sales starting each day at 11 EDT. Each sale will last between 48 and 72 hours.

"We are excited to launch Eziba.com," said Overstock.com President Jonathan Johnson.

"Overstock.com has relationships with a large network of suppliers, who are in search of different avenues to sell product. It was a natural progression for the O to build a private sale site."

Eziba is not accessible via the Overstock homepage, but users can visit Eziba to sign up as a member for free. All orders will ship for $2.95. Customer questions will be handled by Overstock’s 24-hour customer service team.

August 24, 2010
UK Online Retail Reaches $7.8 Billion In July

Online retail spending in the UK reached $7.8 billion (5 billion) in July the most of any month this year according to IMRG Capegemini e-Retail Sales Index.

Brits spent an average of $126 per person online, marking a turning point since the lows of the last two years.

The Index has grown by 18% compared to last July, in the biggest annual jump for the month of July since before the recession in 2007. As retailer promotions drew shoppers online, an impressive growth rate of 14% was recorded compared to June.

"Although online retail sales survived the recession more convincingly than high street sales, the last two years or so have no doubt been shaky at times," said Chris Webster, Vice President, Head of Retail Consulting and Technology, Capegemini.

"It is really encouraging to see growth levels returning to those seen pre-2007 and before consumer confidence was knocked by the financial crisis and recession. The stand-out result this month came from the travel sector, which was boosted by shoppers taking advantage of last minute deals to escape the disappointing summer."

The performance of retailers with a brick-and-mortar and am online presence continues to outperform that of online only retailers. Multichannel retailers experienced growth of 18 percent compared to last month, while online only retailers showed month on month growth of 8 percent. Multichannel retailers are also managing to convert more browsers into actual sales, with an average conversion rate of 4.49%, compared 4.35% for online only retailers.

"With over half of the UK population online at least once a day it is no surprise that online sales continue to grow impressively year on year," David Smith, Managing Director of IMRG.

"The evidence mounts that high street retailers will need to invest more in their online business and put it at the heart of their retail strategy. Online retailers, on the other hand, will need to continue to innovate as they strive to close the growth gap."

August 20, 2010
Yahoo Lets Store Owners Offer Customer Registration

Yahoo announced that it has released the first phase of Customer Registration for Yahoo stores. This introduces registration, sign-in, and account features for store owners to offer their customers. This way, customers can register their info for quicker checkout experiences in the future.

Customer Registration uses OpenID, which should make things even smoother for customers. They won’t have to remember new log-in info, and can simply sign in with a Yahoo, Google, or AOL account.

Users will see "sign in" and "register" links at the top of your store pages.

"Registered customers may now access a customer account area," says Yahoo’s Jennifer Farwell. "The My Account feature makes it easy for customers to check on the status of open orders and to view shipment and tracking information, without having to contact the store merchant directly. This feature also allows customers to see their order history from the time they’ve registered their account, quickly place repeat orders in one click using the new reorder function, and view and edit their customer information."

On a side note, Checkout Manager is now called Checkout & Registration Manager (beta). The beta label only applies to the registration feature. Once it leaves beta (sometime next year), it will include a merchant feature set. For now, it only consists of buyer-facing features.

Details about setting up customer registration can be found here.

August 20, 2010
Online Retail Spending Up 9%

Online retail spending in the U.S. reached $32.9 billion in the second quarter, up 9 percent over a year ago, according to a new report from comScore.

The growth rate represented the third consecutive quarter of positive year-over-year growth following a year of flat or negative growth rates.

"The second quarter’s continuation of the first quarter’s strong retail e-commerce growth rates is encouraging," said comScore chairman Gian Fulgoni.

"We remain cautiously optimistic heading into the second half of the year, but we will be keeping a close eye on unemployment rates, which along with potential uncertainty in the stock market could limit growth in e-commerce spending in the near term."

Other highlights from the Q2 report include:

*Upper-income households (those earning at least $100,000 annually) grew 17 percent compared to a year ago, about twice the overall ecommerce growth rate during the quarter.

*The most popular online product categories were: consumer electronics, computer software, computer peripherals/PDAs, and books and magazines

*Multi-channel retailers regained ecommerce spending market share compared to brick-and-mortar retailers following five consecutive quarters of declining market share.

August 10, 2010
NetChoice Voices Opposition To Online Retail Tax

Representative Paul Hodes (D-NH) introduced today a bipartisan resolution to protect online out-of-state sellers from having to collect taxes in states where they have no physical presence.

The resolution (H.R. 1570) "Supporting the Preservation of Internet Entrepreneurs and Small Businesses," says that Congress should not impose unfair tax collection burdens that would hurt the U.S. economy and consumers.

The resolution is a response to legislation introduced in July 2010 by Representative Bill Delahunt (D, Mass.) which would force all U.S. online retailers across the nation to become tax collectors for states that have joined the Streamlined Sales Tax Project (SSTP).

"Don’t believe it when tax collectors say their software makes it trivial for tiny sellers to collect everyone’s sales tax," said Steve DelBianco, executive director of NetChoice.

"Small sellers will spend thousands of dollars making changes to their website software, plus endless time and accounting fees to handle exceptions, customer questions, and state tax audits."

Under the 1992 U.S. Supreme Court Quill v. North Dakota decision, the court found that the 45 state and 7,600 local sales tax systems across the country were too complicated for a retailer realistically to know how much tax to collect and remit.

Currently online retailers are only required to collect sales tax from out-of-state customers if they have a physical presence, such as a brick-and-mortar store.

"Representative Hodes and his colleagues are to be commended for standing against a national tax system that would saddle small retailers with new collection and compliance burdens," said DelBianco.

"We all support a simpler tax system, but the streamlined sales tax project has become the proverbial wolf in sheep’s clothing."

July 29, 2010
More Online Retailers Focusing On Mobile Strategies

The popularity of mobile applications among consumers is driving online retailers to speed up their mobile marketing initiatives, according to a new study from Forrester Research and Shop.org.

Nearly three-quarters (74%) of online retailers currently have or are developing a mobile strategy. One in five have a mobile strategy already in place.

"It’s imperative for online retailers to stay on top of what their customers want and these days it’s all mobile all the time," said Scott Silverman, Executive Director, Shop.org.

"Mobile commerce has tremendous potential and will no doubt grow to become a significant part of overall sales volume in years to come. Whether to increase customer satisfaction, grow their brand or drive traffic and sales, online retailers are in this game to stay."

Online retailers with mobile strategies:

*Are investing in features that support the cross-channel experience. Product and price information, store information, and coupons to support the in-store experience are among the most popular features that retailers are offering consumers.

*Have varied level of investment. While respondents anticipated spending on average $170,000 on their mobile sites this year, large multichannel retailers are spending several times that amount, while smaller online pure plays on average are investing much less.

*Are experiencing modest gains. Retailers reported that their mobile browsers are generating a little less than three percent of overall site traffic and just two percent of revenue.

"Mobile investment is modest now, but we see that it will pick up in the future, especially among the biggest brands that have already invested significant amounts in their mobile operations," said Sucharita Mulpuru, Vice President, Principal Analyst, Forrester Research, and lead author of the report.

Marketing tactics such as paid search, email and affiliate marketing command the biggest percentage of an online retailers’ marketing budget. According to the report, retailers are spending nearly 40% of their marketing budget on paid search.

Listening to customers is the most significant objective for social tools according to respondents, with 80 percent of retailers reporting that they are pursuing social strategies to experiment and learn. And while 28 percent noted that social marketing has helped grow their business, direct sales from social tactics are not widely measured.

June 29, 2010
Amazon Hopes to Drive 3D Sales Via Consumer Education

Amazon has taken the initiative to educate consumers about 3D technology for the home, so it can sell more products that fall into that category. Still, for the home 3D technology space at large, this may prove to be a helpful act, as Amazon obviously plays a huge role in retail.

"While 3D is on the minds of a lot of customers, many are confused about this new technology and what they need to do in order to watch full HD 3D TV or movies, play 3D video games or use 3D on their computers," said Ben Hartman, director of Home Electronics at Amazon.com. "Our goal with the Amazon 3D 101 customer education center is to provide our customers with easy-to-understand information that will help demystify this new technology."

"We also provide product details to help customers figure out which 3D products best fit their individual needs," he adds. "We will continue to expand and evolve this customer education center as new 3D products and content are released."

Amazon’s educational resources for 3D include:

– Educational videos that help customers easily understand what 3D is and how it works

– Buying guides aimed at helping customers find everything they need to create the best 3D experience at home

– Interactions with the Amazon 3D team and other customers through Amazon discussions boards

– Frequently asked questions updated on a regular basis

– An interactive, intuitive layout that allows customers to easily access and find information

Just how big 3D is going to get is frequently speculated upon, but there’s no question that widespread adoption will not occur without some understanding of what all is involved, which is why besides being a marketing tool for Amazon, this education center could be a useful resource for those tinkering with the idea of purchasing 3D electronics.

April 26, 2010
eBay Says Buying Used Is Being Green

eBay announced today the launch of the eBay Green Team Challenge, a program aimed at turning green shopping into a tangible environmental impact.

Under the program, the first 250,000 people to pledge to reuse on eBay, the company will protect an acre of rainforest in their name through a new collaboration with Team Earth, a coalition of non-governmental organizations, private sector companies and individuals convened by Conservation International.

Along with the launch of the Green Team Challenge, eBay has introduced a new green shopping site, designed to help people access green products.

The new shopping hub is a result of the requests of eBay Green Team members, a community of nearly 150,000 individuals committed to making greener lifestyle choices.

To promote the challenge, eBay is teaming up with Hearst Magazines for the second year in a row, for their month long "30 Days of Green" program. The collaboration features a three-page ad insert that will run in the April issues of all 15 Hearst magazines. The ads will feature a variety of eBay items and will aim to educate consumers about being green.

"We at eBay are constantly looking for ways to show our community of 90 million users that their shopping decisions can have real environmental impact," said Amy Skoczlas Cole, Director of the eBay Green Team.

"This year, through our collaborations with Hearst and Team Earth, we have the opportunity to not only educate millions of consumers about the green value of shopping used, but translate that action into tangible environmental impact."

March 8, 2010
U.S. Online Retail Set For Double-Digit Growth

Online retail in both the U.S. and Western Europe is set for a strong period of double-digit growth over the next five years, according to new forecasts by Forrester Research.

U.S. online retail will grow at a 10 percent compound annual growth rate (CAGR) over the next five years to reach nearly $249 billion by 2014. Online retail within the largest European Union nations in Western Europe will grow at an 11 percent CAGR over the same period, hitting 114 billion by 2014.

Sucharita Mulpuru

"Much of the overall retail sector’s growth in both the US and the EU over the next five years will come from the Internet," said Forrester Research Vice President and Principal Analyst Sucharita Mulpuru.

"To maximize that growth, eBusiness professionals will have to help enable a multichannel strategy that responds to consumers’ increased desire to hop between the offline and online worlds and their increasing mobile and social behaviors. The retail innovators over the next five years will demonstrate customer enablement across all touchpoints, not just via a PC-based Web browser."

Despite consumers’ increasing use of the Internet to research products before purchasing, most retailers fall short on offering a consistent cross-channel experience. According to Forrester’s data, while 82 percent of U.S. online consumers are satisfied with buying experiences that began and ended in a store, satisfaction drops to 61 percent for consumers who began their research online and purchased in a store.

Highlights from the report include:

*In the US, Web shopping will account for 8 percent of total retail sales by 2014.

*Three product categories dominate online retail: apparel, footwear, and accessories; consumer electronics; and consumer hardware, software, and peripherals. Together, those categories represent more than 40 percent of total online retail sales in the US.

*By 2014, 53 percent of total retail sales in the US will be influenced by eCommerce as consumers increasingly use the Internet to research products before purchasing.

March 8, 2010
Online Retail Spending Reaches $39 Billion In Q4
Online retail spending in the U.S. in the fourth quarter reached $39 billion, a 3 percent increase compared to a year ago, according to the latest report from comScore.

Total retail ecommerce spending reached $129.8 billion in 2009, slightly lower than the previous year’s total of $130.1 billion.

"The fourth quarter, with a 3 percent year-over-year growth, helped end what has been a disappointing year for online consumer spending on a more positive note," said comScore chairman Gian Fulgoni.

"As we head into 2010, there is reason for guarded optimism for online retail spending to continue to gain share of consumers’ wallets. At the same time, I expect absolute growth to be stymied by continued high unemployment and the deleveraging that is occurring in the economy as consumers exercise their new found propensity to save."

The largest online retailers, led by Amazon and Walmart, gained market share of ecommerce sales compared to small and medium-sized retailers.

Spending growth was driven by an increase in online buyers, while average spending per buyer saw modest declines.

Other highlights from the report include:
- Free shipping factored into more than 40 percent of e-commerce transactions during the holiday season.
- Tuesday, December 15 ranked as the heaviest U.S. online spending day in history at $913 million.
Related Articles:

>Cyber Monday Deals Attract Online Shoppers

>Walmart Wins Thanksgiving, Amazon Wins Black Friday

>Online Retailers See Strong Cyber Monday Sales
February 9, 2010
Shipping Sites See Surge In Traffic In December

Retail sites, shipping sites, and greeting cards sites all saw surges in traffic in December due to the holiday season, according to a new report from comScore.

"December proved to be a strong month for the retail category with Tuesday, Dec. 15 ranking as the heaviest online spending day of the year – and of all time – at $913 million," said Jack Flanagan, executive vice president of comScore Media Metrix.

"Holiday seasonality also fueled visitation to Shipping sites, which continually see their highest volume of traffic during the month of December."

Not surprisingly, retails sites climbed in December as Americans search the Internet for holiday deals. The top gaining retail categories were jewelry/luxury goods/accessories, sports/outdoor, and flower/gifts /greeting sites, each growing more than 20 percent compared to November.

Jewelry/luxury goods/accessories sites attracted nearly 23 million visitors during the month, representing a 30 percent increase from November. eBags led the category with 2.9 million visitors (up 28 %), followed by Coach.com with 2.2 million visitors (up 26 percent), Zale Corporation with 2.1 million (up 48 %) and Kay Jewelers with 1.7 million (up 69 %).

Sports/outdoor sites grew to nearly 39 million visitors during the month, a 25 percent increase compared to November, led by eBay Sports with 5.1 million visitors (up 21%), trailed closely by Cabelas with 5 million visitors (up 26%). Dicks Sporting Goods followed with 4.6 million visitors (up 39%) and Sports Authority with 2.9 million visitors (up 29%).

Flowers/gifts/greetings sites saw a 23-percent gain, reaching nearly 39.8 million unique visitors in December. American Greetings led the category with 13.6 million visitors (up 18 %), followed by Gifts.com with 6.8 million (up 49 %), Hallmark with 5.6 million (up 46 %) and 1-800-Flowers.com with 2.9 million (up 48 %).

Traffic to shipping sites spiked in December as Americans rushed to ensure delivery of their gift purchases in time for the holidays. The category attracted 36.6 million visitors during the month, representing a 33-percent increase in traffic. UPS sites led the category with 19.7 million visitors (up 51 %), followed by USPS.com with 15.9 million (up 40 %) and FedEx with 12.6 million (up 36 %).

The e-card category grew 29 percent to 31.7 million visitors. The most visited site was Evite with nearly 8 million visitors (up 16%), followed by AG Interactive with 6.7 million (up 46%), MyFunCards with 5.7 million, and 123Greetings with 4.3 million (up 55%).

Related Articles:

>Cyber Monday Deals Attract Online Shoppers

>Walmart Wins Thanksgiving, Amazon Wins Black Friday

>Online Retailers See Strong Cyber Monday Sales

January 21, 2010