14 DAY TRIAL // A recent survey shows that this holiday season sales will still pick up, despite the extremely slow kick-start. Good news for the online sales department of any firm, but still not so good because it will actually be a drop in an ongoing on the rise trend.
"It's true that this year's growth rate will be a drop-off from last year's growth of 25 percent," says Jeffrey Grau, an eMarketer analyst. "But it is far superior to the low single-digit growth rate forecast for the overall retail industry this holiday season."
This year's rate that Grau talked about is that of about 18.5, meaning 31 billion dollars. On a side note, I must confess that I don't know why they complain when it'a all on the rise and it's billions we're talking about but my diploma doesn't say e-commerce analyst so I'll just shush and listen.
It seems that although the start was incredibly poor, the sales have ever since picked up sharply and are momentarily running 17 percent ahead of the same period of last year, according to data collected on the 18th of November. "Sales in the first 10 days of November were up modestly versus year ago, but surged to levels in excess of 20 percent by mid-November. It's likely that warmer than average weather at the beginning of November kept people outdoors and away from their computers, weighing down early holiday season sales, especially for key online categories like apparel", says comSCore chairman Gian Fulgioni.
A 2 % rise is predicted to be noted amidst mature online shoppers in comparison to last year, from 40% up to 42% according to a Consumer Reports survey that also gave the reason for why people choose this variant to the classic door-to-door walk shopping: 48% cited convenience while others mentioned the desire to avoid crowds, find a better selection or the lower prices.
I'll never be for online shopping for stuff and don't think it's because I shun technology, I really don't, but there aren't many things I could compare to the feeling of walking up to the car with 20 bags that have both my hands occupied while my girlfriend is also jumping with joy around me while trying to take a peak at the surprise presents she shouldn't know about. But perhaps that's just me, an old smoothie.