Consumers spent less online this holiday season compared to last, comScore Inc. reports. E-retail sales for the period between Nov. 1 and Dec. 23 totaled $25.5 billion, down 3% compared to $26.3 billion for the same period last year, the web measurement firm reports.
“The 2008 online holiday shopping season fell behind our expectation of flat sales,” says comScore chairman Gian Fulgoni. “This marks the first time we’ve seen negative growth rates for the holiday season since we began tracking e-commerce in 2001. The combination of having five fewer shopping days between Thanksgiving and Christmas and the severe economic headwinds faced by consumers has made this a really tough season for retailers, both offline and online.”
E-commerce sales for Q4 also will be lower than last year, comScore says. For the period of Oct. 1 through Dec. 28, compared to the same period in 2007, e-commerce spending is down 4% to $36.8 billion from $38.4 billion. The fourth quarter will mark the first quarter in which e-commerce sales declined since comScore began tracking online sales.
Another report shows chain store sales fell in the days leading up to Christmas, as procrastinators were met with bad weather and many did not venture out to stores. Chain store retail sales for the week ending Dec. 27 fell 1.5% from a week earlier and 1.8% compared to the same week a year earlier, according to the International Council of Shopping Centers Inc. and Goldman Sachs weekly sales index.
Following are weekly figures for chain store sales for each week in December 2008 with percent change compared to the same week in 2007 and the prior week:
- Week ending Dec. 27, -1.8 %, -1.5%
- Week ending Dec. 20, -0.6 %, 2.6%
- Week ending Dec. 13, -0.4 %, 0.6%
- Week ending Dec. 6, 0.4 %, -0.8 %
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