Online retail sales shot up last Friday as consumers flocked to the web as well as to malls to do their Christmas shopping. ComScore Networks Inc. and BizRate.com Inc. released reports showing that online buying was up strongly on Friday--although their numbers differed significantly.
ComScore Media Metrix reported that online sales reached $150.9 million on Friday, 40% higher than last year’s day after Thanksgiving. BizRate reported that sales hit $234.2 million, 61% higher than last year’s post-Thanksgiving Friday. The boosts were even higher than the 34% increase in online sales for the entire year that the Commerce Department reported last week and the 37% year-to-date growth that BizRate reports.
ComScore reports that the top three retail categories on Friday were computer hardware, where sales were up 8% vs. a year ago; consumer electronics, up 36% from a year ago; and apparel and accessories, up 24%. ComScore says the toys and home and garden categories experienced triple digit increases vs. a year ago. Travel spending on Friday was up 7% to $44.7 million, comScore reports.
To keep the numbers in perspective, though, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. reports that sales last Friday were nearly 10 times comScore’s online figure and six times BizRate’s, reaching $1.43 billion.
Total retail sales on Friday were up 12.3% over the day after Thanksgiving a year ago, according to the National Retail Sales Estimate from ShopperTrak RCT. The increase for Friday, Saturday and Sunday sales was 12.4% over a year ago, ShopperTrak reports, reaching $15.9 billion vs. $14.2 billion a year ago. Retail sales have increased 5% year to date, ShopperTrak says. Saturday sales were up 9% and Sunday sales up 18.5% vs. a year ago.
“Clearly, this weekend was a very strong start to the holiday retail season with many retailers reporting record sales,” said Michael Niemira, lead consultant for the NRSE. “While the industry will still have its work cut out for it to maintain this pace, we have to be encouraged by what we’ve seen so far.”
The differences between comScore’s and BizRate’s number are the result of different methodologies. ComScore bases its numbers on a cross-section of the 1.5 million Internet users who have given comScore permission to track their online behavior. BizRate bases its numbers on sales at 2,000 retail sites that it monitors and fills in the rest of its projection from publicly disclosed numbers at sites it does not monitor. Neither company’s numbers include travel or auction sales.
Also reporting numbers was the 2002 eSpending Report from Goldman Sachs & Co., Harris Interactive and Nielsen/NetRatings, which says that 18% more web users shopped online on Friday than the daily Monday-Thursday average. The 2002 eSpending Report also says that consumers spent $4.5 billion online in the first three weeks of November, up $22%--$1 billion--over last year. Spending per person increased to nearly $88 during the week ending November 22, up 22% over the previous week and 8% compared to the same time last year, says the eSpending Report.
BizRate says total online sales in November reached $5.4 billion, up 37% from November last year. BizRate reports that last Monday was the busiest online shopping day this year, with sales reaching $263.4 million. It projects that next Monday (Dec. 9) will be the peak online shopping day with sales of $387.7 million. Last year’s peak shopping day was Dec. 10, with $253.8 million in sales.
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