To attract shoppers, prices were marked down once, sometimes twice, which could negatively affect retailers’ profits for the year. “Stores are buying those sales at a cost,” Sherif Mityas, a partner at the consulting firm A.T. Kearney, told the New York Times.
In sharp contrast to offline sales, the SpendingPulse figures showed that online sales posted a 22.4% gain over the 2006 holiday shopping season.
Backing up that positive assessment, comScore Networks reported that online retail sales rose 19% over a year ago, hitting a record $26.2 billion from Nov. 1 through Dec. 21. Both figures were in line with eMarketer’s earlier prediction of an 18.5% rise for online holiday sales.
eMarketer projected that online holiday sales would reach $31 billion this season, a slight drop-off from last year’s growth rate of 25%. Back in November, Jeffrey Grau, eMarketer senior analyst, predicted that, “while consumers have said they plan to spend less this year on holiday gifts, and that may signal trouble for store retail sales, it could benefit Web retailers.” He was right.
"The Internet is still acquiring new users and new shoppers," Ron LaPierre of PriceGrabber.com told Investor's Business Daily. As online spending strength goes deeper into the season, sales traffic volumes continue to shift. Unlike in seasons past, Cyber Monday was far from being the busiest online shopping day this year.
“'Green Monday,' Dec. 10, will reign as the heaviest individual spending day of the season with $881 million in sales,” said comScore Chairman Gian Fulgoni. “Cyber Monday, Nov. 26, which represents the first major spike in online spending activity during the season, ranked as the ninth-heaviest day with $733 million in sales.”
