With online sales decreasing 3% during the recently concluded holiday shopping season, web measurement firm comScore Inc. says only three of 14 retail categories registered sales gains over last year in the Dec. 1-24 period—Sport & Fitness, Video Games, Consoles & Accessories, and Apparel & Accessories.
And while the less affluent cut back on web shopping, households with annual incomes above $100,000 increased spending by 7% during that period over a comparable period in 2007. That compares with a decline of 8% among households with incomes of $50,000-$99,999 and 13% for those with incomes under $50,000, comScore says.
The growth in the sport and fitness category is a product of consumers’ focus on health and fitness and their growing confidence in buying high-priced treadmills, elliptical equipment and other items online, comScore says. The video game category benefited from the popularity of new game consoles, and apparel was helped by aggressive discounting by retailers and severe weather across much of the country, the web-tracking firm says.
Here are the 14 retail categories comScore tracks with the year-over-year online sales growth or decline for the period Dec. 1-24, 2008, vs. Nov. 26-Dec. 19, 2007:
- Sport & Fitness, 18%
- Video Games, Consoles & Accessories, 14%
- Apparel & Accessories, 4%
- Books & Magazines, -1%
- Consumer Electronics, -5%
- Flowers, Greetings & Gifts, -7%
- Toys, -7%
- Computer Hardware, -8%
- Home, Garden & Furniture, -14%
- Event Tickets, -18%
- Jewelry & Watches, -24%
- Computer Software (excluding PC games), -24%
- Office Supplies, -30%
- Music, Movies & Videos, -32%
ComScore notes that online sales performed better in certain categories than offline sales, based on a comparison with the MasterCard Advisors’ SpendingPulse report for total retail sales for Nov. 1-Dec. 24 from a subsidiary of MasterCard Worldwide. For instance, online apparel sales were up 4% online, while they were down 19-21% overall, comScore says. Online sales declined 5% in Consumer Electronics and Home, Garden and Furniture by 14%, but MasterCard reported a 26% drop in overall sales of electronics and appliances. Jewelry & Watches declined 24% online, comScore says, while MasterCard reported a 34% decline in combined online and offline sales of luxury goods, including jewelry and watches.
“For an online holiday shopping season that recorded a disappointing 3% decline in sales, a positive note is that e-commerce trends outperformed overall consumer spending in several product categories, which is to say that e-commerce continued to capture an increasing share of consumers’ wallets,” says comScore chairman Gian Fulgoni. “Clearly, 2008 was an extremely challenging time for many retailers, and the beginning of 2009 may not be much better. But when the consumer economy eventually does rebound, e-commerce is poised to benefit from its emergence as an important consumer sales channel.”
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