Predictions for online retail this Christmas have been generally positive, and initial results seem to be bearing this optimism out.
I've gathered together some stats on e-commerce spending for the holiday season so far...
US online retail sales (comScore)
- For the holiday season from November 1 to December 20, US online retail sales reached $24.8bn, a 4% increase over the same period in 2008.
- Spending on 'Green Monday' December 14 was $854m, 1% less than the previous year, but the three following days each surpassed $800m.
- Tuesday, December 15 set an individual day spending record with $913m. By comparison, spending on Cyber Monday (Nov. 30) was $887m.
Peak online shopping days in the UK (Hitwise)
- Cyber Monday’ (Dec 7) and Sunday December 6 were the joint busiest days for online retailers so far this year, meaning that the peak for Christmas online shopping has moved closer to the 25th. The busiest day for online retailers in 2008 was Sunday November 30.
- Department stores and supermarkets have been the biggest beneficiaries of the shift towards later online shopping this Christmas, though Amazon had the biggest increase in visits.
- According to MetaPack stats, Cyber Monday remains the highest shopping day in the UK with sales on Monday 14 decreasing by 2% on the 7th.
- On December 7, £1.4m was spent online at 13:43 in just one minute, with sales peaking at £33m between 13:00 and 14:00. (IMRG)
UK average order values (Coremetrics)
- Coremetrics figures show that the value of the average order placed online is up by 94% this Christmas, compared to 2008.
- The number of goods that are purchased per transaction has also increased significantly, from 2.7 items in 2007 to 3.7 per order in 2009.
UK online retail sales (IMRG)
- UK shoppers spent £5.3bn online in November, with sales up by 25% on Octobers, and by 11% compared to November 2008.
Graham Charlton is Editor at Econsultancy. Follow him on Twitter or connect via Linkedin or Google+.
Founder at The Ecommerce Network
5:06PM on 22nd December 2009
Staggering amounts of money - and there are still lots of people out there who won't put their credit card details anywhere near it!
I think we're in the right business anyway...
5:18PM on 22nd December 2009
These ecommerce spending stats are awesome. These figures show the an even greater shift towards online retail :)
Social Media Specialist at MikeStenger.com
10:03PM on 22nd December 2009
Nope, no one is buying in this horrible recession. What are retailers going to do!?
4:05PM on 25th January 2010
another trend to take notice of is the movement of many e-commerce entities to incorporate social networking into their activities. Many retailers are using Twitter, for example, and one price comparison site, Sortprice, offers its merchants the benefit of building a virtual store right on their Facebook fan pages with something called the Merchant Store application (www.sortprice.com/facebook_store)