Round up of Christmas e-commerce predictions

While there are still concerns about the economy, the outlook for online retail this Christmas seems generally bright, with a number of consumer surveys predicting an increase in consumer spending online. 

I'll check back in January to see if these predications and surveys turn out to be accurate, but here's a round up of recent stats on e-commerce this Christmas...

US holiday season (comScore)

• For the holiday season so far (Nov 1st to 24th), $8.21bn has been spent online, a 2% increase on the same period last year.
• The comScore forecast is that online retail spending for the November to December period will reach $28.8bn, 3% up on 2008.
• Research group eMarketer predicts that online sales will rise by 4.5% on 2008 to reach £30bn.

US consumer spending (US) (Compete)

• 90% of consumers will spend at least some of their holiday budget online this year, up from 84% last year.
• Consumers are likely to take advantage of cross channel shopping options. 42% reported that they are likely to choose a collect in store option.

US consumer behaviour (Yahoo)

• 58% of people polled by Yahoo plan to shop and research purchases both online and in stores, and 58% said they plan to actually purchase gifts both online and offline.
• 50% of people intend to use the web for research more than last year, and 48% said that, thanks to the economy, they will do more shopping online in 2009.

UK consumer behaviour  (GSI Commerce)

• A quarter of 2,043 British adults surveyed said they are willing to spend more than £1,000 on a product online this year, compared with 12% in 2008.
• Fewer respondents claim they will cap their spending at £250 or less per product (32% in 2009, compared to 48% last year).
• 93% of consumers are planning to do at least some of their shopping online this Christmas, with 71% planning to buy more than half of their gifts on the web.(IMRG via Econsultancy)

UK consumer spending (PriceGrabber)

• 47% of 1,000 web consumers surveyed said they planned to do between 10% and 50% of their Christmas shopping in the January sales.
• 39% of shoppers are planning to spend less money this year as a direct result of their current financial situation.