ANN ARBOR – The holiday shopping season is winding down this week. But you know Santa has a broadband connection at the North Pole (how else do you think Comcast gets away with always being so naughty?) so he?ll be shopping online right up to the last minute. And I bet he won?t be alone.
So far the online shopping season is shaping up to be just as predicted. The research group comScore Networks reports sales are about 23 percent ahead of last year?s pace, which is almost exactly what the experts had forecast. Here at Fry we?re seeing some of our clients doing slightly better than that, particularly among luxury and specialty products. We?ve also seen that some merchants are doing better as we go deeper into December. The weeks immediately after Thanksgiving weren?t so strong for some retailers, but many of them found last week was an improvement.
By the way, the much-hyped ?Cyber Monday? turned out to be of no particular importance. Despite all the press about the Monday after Thanksgiving being ?the busiest day of the online shopping season,? comScore shows November 28th ranks ninth in total e-commerce revenue so far this holiday. (The busiest day was basically a tie between December 12th and December 13th when consumers spent more than a $1.1 billion online.) I know some of our retail customers were confused by the Cyber Monday press and were disappointed when their sales didn?t skyrocket that day. It turns out hardly anybody?s did.
We can get some visibility into what people were buying this year by looking at what keywords people searched for most frequently. The winner is ?iPod,? which was searched for more than 45 million times between November 1st and December 4th, followed by ?Xbox 360? with 34 million searches. ?Playstation? trailed at 12 million searches. It looks like Microsoft won the video game battle this holiday, if only they?d had enough boxes to meet demand.
Surprisingly the sports and fitness category has seen the largest improvement from last year, with a 59 percent uptick, as people give sporting goods and exercise equipment to their loved ones this holiday. Nothing says family like, ?I think you?re fat so I hope you?ll enjoy this treadmill.? Sales of durable items, like furniture and appliances, were also up 50 percent, an impressive showing for a category that has not traditionally been as strong online.
In an earlier edition of this column I had predicted that some merchants would have major problems handling all the traffic coming to their sites this season, but that has largely turned out to be wrong. There have been sporadic problems for retailers like Harry & David, Circuit City, and Best Buy, but there haven?t been any pervasive issues like we have seen in years past. And Gap.com, which had problems earlier in the Fall after it launched a major redesign in September, has seemingly operated without issues. The research organization Gomez does report, however, that Gap.com ranks near the bottom of its list of site reliability for 25 major retailers. (Who?s the best? Apple wins again with zero recorded downtime this holiday.)
This week all the sites will be promoting their season-ending special offers and shipping cut-off dates (the last day you can buy an item online and still receive it by December 24th). For example, Circuit City asks that you place your order by Tuesday at noon to receive it in time with standard shipping. Hickory Farms will give you free shipping on all orders over $50 placed through Wednesday at noon. In the next few days you?ll see many retailers upgrade your order to next-day-delivery at no extra charge.
And, of course, this is the age of multi-channel retailing, so some stores will allow you to place your order online and pick it up in the store right up to Saturday, December 24th. Circuit City, for instance, promises your item will be available for pick up within 24 minutes after you click ?Submit,? or they?ll give you a $24 gift card.
This has been an exciting e-commerce shopping season and I hope you?ve found just the right gifts for your loved ones. After this week, push the mouse away, put your laptop to ?sleep,? and take a break for some real-world fun and relaxation. But not for too long. You have to start redeeming all those online gift certificates on December 26th!
This column was written by David Fry, founder of Fry Inc. of Ann Arbor, which has been designing, developing, and managing the world’s most respected and recognized eBusiness brands, applications, and systems since 1994. For more information, click on Fry.Com
