Team DCI: Internet Sales Set Records
Americans spent over $30 billion during the holiday season; up 30 percent from previous holiday. The winners in the online product popularity contest, with double to triple digit year-over-year growth, were Apparel, Computer Hardware, and Consumer Electronics. Online sales exceeded even the most optimistic forecasters.
Apparel/Clothing, Computer Hardware/Peripherals and Consumer Electronics Captured the most online holiday dollars this year, showing double to triple-digit year-over-year growth; record high in shoppers choosing to buy online vs. other channels.
Books ($3 billion) and toys/video games ($2.3 billion) rounded out the top five categories. Books definitely had a better story to tell than toys. The books category jumped 66 percent in revenue from last year, compared to toys/video games, which fell nine percent from the last holiday season.
Reasons: Primary drivers of e-commerce holiday growth were convenience, product selection, and lower prices. Free-shipping with purchase limits jump started online shopping and higher gas prices focused consumers on fewer trips. 2005 brought the still often awkward pricing comparison engines like shopzilla and shop.org into the consumer awareness. Offerings by search giants Yahoo! and Google increased the shopping convenience for first time web purchasers. Each provided resources for people interested in researching and comparing product features, shopping locations, and prices.
Gift Card: National Retail Federation reports that shoppers bought $18.5 billion in gift cards during November and December. Ease of redemption, adjustable gift card balance, easy online use, and increased card marketing contributed to growth in gift card giving. Gift card redemption accounted to the retail flurries into last month. After Christmas sales were the perfect incentive to move card recipients into shopping action.
Customer Satisfaction Down: A site’s total shopping experience must meet or exceed consumer expectations. According to ForSee and FGI, most of the online top 40 retail websites under delivered on customer’s expectations, as measured by an average satisfaction decrease of four percent. The online stores scoring the highest during the holidays were: Netflix (84%) Amazon (82%) LLBean (80) and QVC (80). One reason for mismatch on expectations and reality was the number of first time internet shoppers. Any site not delivering a totally intuitive and one click shopping experience was likely to disappoint the first time shopper.
+ eSpending Report from Goldman Sachs, Nielsen/NetRatings and Harris Interactive
© 2006 Florence News reprint permission to Billy Florence Team blog.
Apparel/Clothing, Computer Hardware/Peripherals and Consumer Electronics Captured the most online holiday dollars this year, showing double to triple-digit year-over-year growth; record high in shoppers choosing to buy online vs. other channels.
Books ($3 billion) and toys/video games ($2.3 billion) rounded out the top five categories. Books definitely had a better story to tell than toys. The books category jumped 66 percent in revenue from last year, compared to toys/video games, which fell nine percent from the last holiday season.
Reasons: Primary drivers of e-commerce holiday growth were convenience, product selection, and lower prices. Free-shipping with purchase limits jump started online shopping and higher gas prices focused consumers on fewer trips. 2005 brought the still often awkward pricing comparison engines like shopzilla and shop.org into the consumer awareness. Offerings by search giants Yahoo! and Google increased the shopping convenience for first time web purchasers. Each provided resources for people interested in researching and comparing product features, shopping locations, and prices.
Gift Card: National Retail Federation reports that shoppers bought $18.5 billion in gift cards during November and December. Ease of redemption, adjustable gift card balance, easy online use, and increased card marketing contributed to growth in gift card giving. Gift card redemption accounted to the retail flurries into last month. After Christmas sales were the perfect incentive to move card recipients into shopping action.
Customer Satisfaction Down: A site’s total shopping experience must meet or exceed consumer expectations. According to ForSee and FGI, most of the online top 40 retail websites under delivered on customer’s expectations, as measured by an average satisfaction decrease of four percent. The online stores scoring the highest during the holidays were: Netflix (84%) Amazon (82%) LLBean (80) and QVC (80). One reason for mismatch on expectations and reality was the number of first time internet shoppers. Any site not delivering a totally intuitive and one click shopping experience was likely to disappoint the first time shopper.
+ eSpending Report from Goldman Sachs, Nielsen/NetRatings and Harris Interactive
© 2006 Florence News reprint permission to Billy Florence Team blog.
posted by Billy Florence at
11:33 AM
