Thanksgiving week dishes up a strong start to holiday online shopping

Online sales on Thanksgiving were up 29% over Thanksgiving a year ago, reaching $270 million from $210 million, and up 22% on the day after Thanksgiving from a year earlier, reaching $530 million from $430 million, comScore Networks Inc. reports. Online retail spending was up 17% in the first three weeks of November vs. a year ago, reaching $9.36 billion from $7.98 billion, comScore reports.

“The Friday after Thanksgiving is known for heavy spending in retail stores, but it’s clear that consumers are increasingly turning to the Internet to make their holiday purchases,” says comScore chairman Gian Fulgoni. “Online spending on Black Friday has historically represented an early indicator of how the rest of the season will shake out. That the 22% growth rate versus last year is outpacing the overall growth rate for the first three weeks of the season should be seen as a sign of positive momentum.”

ComScore projects that online retail sales in November and December will reach $29.5 billion, up 20% from $24.6 billion a year ago.

In offline shopping, the National Retail Federation reports that 4.8% more consumers shopped in stores on the day after Thanksgiving compared to a year ago, but that the average consumer spent 3.5% less than a year ago.

Online shopping actually started strongly before Thanksgiving, reports payment processor Chase Paymentech. Sales on Wednesday at 10 retail web sites that Chase monitors for its Chase Paymentech Pulse Index were up 32% over the day before Thanksgiving in 2006, reaching $86.2 million, the second consecutive day of $80 million-plus sales. Sales on the day after Thanksgiving at the monitored sites were up 39.6% and were up 38% for the entire weekend. Sales at the sites on Sunday reached $82.1 million, second only to the day before Thanksgiving.

U.S. traffic to the top 100 retail web sites increased 20% on Thanksgiving vs. Thanksgiving 2006, traffic monitoring company Hitwise reports. The top visited web site on Thanksgiving was Walmart.com. receiving 15.80% of U.S. visits among the top 100 retail web sites, followed by BestBuy.com, 8.76%, CircuitCity.com, 7.22%, Amazon.com, 7.03%, and Target 5.22%.

Nielsen Online reports that traffic to sites in its Holiday eShopping Index grew 10% on Friday over the same day a year ago, reaching 21.2 million visitors from 19.2 million. Nielsen monitors 120 retail sites in 12 categories.

Retail sites with the largest number of unique visitors (in millions) the week ending Nov. 16 and week ending Nov. 23, and growth from the prior week, according to Nielsen Online, were:

• InterActiveCorp, 5.191, 5.316, 2%
• Amazon, 3,317, 5.100, 54%
• Wal-Mart Stores, 1.391, 3.599, 159%
• Target Corp., 1.168, 2.766, 137%
• Best Buy, 479, 1.877, 292%
• Circuit City Stores, 0.462, 1.649, 257%
• Sears Holdings Corp., 0.502, 1,562, 211%
• Apple Computer, 0.643, 1.359, 111%
• Dell Inc., 0.978, 1.263, 29%
• JCPenney, 0.507, 1.137, 124%

• Consumer Electronics, 235%
• Computer Hardware/Software, 121%
• Shopping Comparison/Portals, 95%
• Apparel, 83%
• Toys/Videogames, 71%
• Shoes, 67%
• Home and Garden, 65%
• Flowers and Gifts, 53%
• Retail, 47%
• Beauty, 36%
• Books/Music/Video, 1%
• Jewelry, N/A
• TOTAL, 42%

The survey found that more than a third of holiday shoppers plan to cut back their gift-buying budget this year. The main reasons cited were: lower income this year, 28%; general economic concerns, 25%; and increasing energy prices, 19%.

Even if they plan to purchase an item at a retail store, 69% of shoppers plan to use the Internet to browse or check prices before going to the store.