Online shopping gets stronger start this year than last, says annual index
The online holiday shopping season kicked off the week of Nov. 9, with traffic to retail sites growing 13% over the baseline week of Oct. 26, reports the annual Holiday eCommerce Index from Nielsen/NetRatings. The start of online holiday shopping was stronger than last year, when the first week of online shopping grew 11% over the baseline week, Nielsen/NetRatings reports.
Toy and video game retailers led the surge, with traffic to those sites up 99%. Leaders were ToysRUs.com, where traffic was up 105%, and KB Holdings sites, which include KBToys.com and eToys.com, where traffic was up 99%.
Home and garden as well as consumer electronics sites also experienced strong growth. Traffic to home and garden retail sites was up 27%, led by MarthaStewart.com, up 80%, and Sears.com, up 54%. Traffic to consumer electronics sites was up 25%, driven by CircuitCity.com’s 68% increase and RitzCamera.com’s 65% increase.
If previous experience is any guide, online shopping will peak somewhere around the weekend of Dec. 13 and 14. The peak in 2000 was about a week earlier than that, but with consumers’ greater comfort in online shopping and retailers’ better ability to execute orders and deliver on time, the peak occurred later in 2001 and 2002.
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