Online Holiday Shopping Predictions
eMarketer predicted today that despite ominous economic signs on the horizon, this will be the largest online holiday shopping season ever. eMarketer forecasts that online sales for the fourth quarter will be $26.2 billion, up 21.9% over last year. They suggest that high gas prices and bad weather may spur consumers to do more of their holiday shopping over the Internet.
The annual 2004 eSpending Report, noted – over the last several years – that consumers have shifted a bigger portion of their holiday spending from stores to Web sites. In 2004, shoppers spent 22% of their total holiday spending online compared to 16% in 2002. At the same time, consumers decreased the amount they spent in stores from 78% in 2002, to 72% in 2004.
LaGarde conducted a survey of e-tailers in July 2005, which showed that they expect the online holiday shopping season to begin earlier than the traditional offline holiday season. More than 25% of respondents believed online shopping would start in August or September and more than 60% stated they believed the season would start before November 1st.
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