Christmastime and the clickin’ is good
As Christmas 2002 got closer, online retailers’ mood kept getting better—and
for good reason. Overall retail sales during the holiday shopping season may
have been disappointing, but nothing was stopping online consumers. In the two
weeks from pre-Thanksgiving to Dec. 6, when shopping was in full swing, the
proportion of online retailers who were optimistic about the results of holiday
shopping increased 13%: 71 out of every 100 online retailers were feeling hopeful
about the year vs. 63 two weeks before, reported the Shop.org/BizRate.com 2002
Online Holiday Mood Study.
They had reason to continue to grow their optimism as the season progressed:
Online retail spending grew in double digits compared to the year before, and
some days experienced triple-digit growth. Sales during the period between Thanksgiving
and Christmas matched the prior year’s sales, even though the traditional shopping
season was a week shorter in 2002 than in 2001. For the full fourth quarter,
online sales beat Q4 of 2001 by more than 30%, according to projections by comScore
Networks Inc. and Internet Retailer at press date (Dec. 19).
Most retailers reported strong online sales, among them Kmart.com, which experienced
113% growth the weekend after Thanksgiving vs. a year ago; SharperImage.com,
which reported 81% growth that weekend; and Overstock.com, which reported triple-digit
growth throughout the shopping period.
Contributing to stronger sales through the holiday period were most retailers’
stellar web site performances. “We did not see any significant issues in retail
sites’ availability or any serious performance fluctuations,” says Leslie Gaillard,
product manager for vertical indices of web performance management and testing
company Keynote Systems Inc. Availability of sites was usually at 98% or better
and download times were generally no longer than 6 seconds. As important as
the speed was the consistency, she says, with few retailers showing wild swings
in the time it took their pages to download.
The high level of performance was generally due to better planning, says Roopak
Patel, Keynote’s product manager for brand marketing services. “Retailers are
getting much smarter about preparing for their busy time of year,” he says.
“They’re getting ready not just two months out but as early as June and July.
A lot of forethought went into turning performance issues into a non-event.”
