Weekly e-sales go flat, failing to hit $1 billion for first time this year

The string of $1 billion weeks in online sales has broken, with sales the week ending May 30 barely changing from the corresponding week last year, falling just shy of $1 billion at $976 million, reports comScore Networks Inc. It was the first week this year that online sales did not top $1 billion. Sales for the same week a year ago were $971 million.

The weakness was due to the general slackness of retail sales and the timing of Memorial Day this year vs. last, comScore says. Total retail sales for the week ending May 29 were down 8.6% from the year-earlier week, reports ShopperTrak’s National Retail Sales Estimate. ComScore reports that the week before Memorial Day is usually a slow week for online sales. The week ending May 30 represented the week before Memorial Day this year. Last year, online sales the week before Memorial Day were off 9% vs. the week before. This year, sales the week before Memorial Day were off 10% from the prior week.

To complicate matters, that week this year corresponded to last year’s week of Memorial Day, when online sales jumped 10% vs. the week before. And so a slow week before Memorial Day did not compare favorably with last year’s week of Memorial day.

Online travel sales also suffered the same week, comScore reports, falling 2% to $735 million from $751 million a year ago. Online travel sales do not follow the same trend as retail sales data, comScore says. “Last year`s Travel category sales were up 19% week-over-week in the pre-holiday week and down 16% week-over-week in the holiday week,” a comScore spokesman says. “This year the Travel category sales are down 25% week-over-week in the pre-holiday week, so it appears the weakness here is due to legitimately soft performance.”