Xmas online retail predictions round-up

Posted 17 November 2008 08:45am by Graham Charlton with 0 comments

With consumers' spending power on the high street expected to be hit by a slowing economy, e-commerce is expected by some to be the one bright spot for retailers this Christmas.

IMRG released its predictions for Q4  yesterday, forecasting a 15% year on year rise in online shopping.

With this in mind, I've taken a look at some other predictions for Christmas 2008 for the UK and US markets...

IMRG / Capgemini:

• UK shoppers will spend £13.16bn online in the last quarter of 2008, 15% more than Q4 2007.
  
   
• This equates to £215 for every person in the UK, but represents a slowdown compared with the 54% year on year increase in 2007.
  
   
• IMRG predicts that Monday 8th December will be the busiest day for etailers, with £320m of sales. Peak web shopping times are expected between 1pm and 2pm.

Verdict Research:

• Verdict has a more optimistic outlook, predicting that Christmas online sales in the UK will hit £7bn, a 39.9% increase.

US holiday season - Forrester:

• A similar pattern is expected in the US, with Forrester predicting that shoppers will spend $44bn in November and December.
  
   
• This would be an increase of 12% over Christmas 2007, but indicates slower growth than in previous years.

eMarketer:

• eMarketer predicts that online xmas sales (November and December) will reach $32bn in 2008, up 10% over 2007.

I'll check again in January to see how accurate these predictions prove to be...

Related articles:
An internet Christmas round-up...
Xmas etail stats round-up

Related research:
Internet Statistics Compendium - October 2008