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Posts Tagged ‘comScore’

E-commerce Sales Rise Again in Q1

Posted in Ecommerce, General News / Technology, Online Shopping, tagged , , , on May 11, 2011 | Leave a Comment »

Any concerns that the e-commerce industry would suffer through a hangover of sorts after a robust holiday shopping season can be put to rest for the time being at least.

comScore data released today shows that e-tail sales increased 12 percent in the first quarter of 2011 compared tothe same time period a year ago.  The increase marks a sixth straight quarter of year-over-year growth and gives the industry back-to-back quarters of double digit sales increases.

Total U.S. e-commerce sales for the quarter were $38 billion, up from $33.98 billion in Q1 2010.

“Domestic retail e-commerce built on the success of a strong 2010 holiday season with another encouraging quarter here in the first three months of the year,” said Gian Fulgoni, comScore’s chairman.  “Faced with rapidly rising gas prices and stubbornly high unemployment, consumers continued to take advantage of the Internet’s lower prices by shifting their spending from offline retail stores.”

“In fact, in the first quarter, the growth in e-commerce spending was roughly double that observed at offline retail,” Fulgoni continued.  “While we would expect online buying to dampen slightly if gas prices continue to eat into discretionary spending, it’s clear that e-commerce has become a mainstay in consumer behavior, driven by the attraction of both lower prices and convenience.”

The data suggests that smaller and mid-sized merchants are starting to garner a larger piece of the e-commerce pie.  The top 25 online retailers’ share of all e-commerce sales remained at 67.7 percent for Q1, the same as during Q1 last year.  But that’s still down from a 2010 high of about 70 percent.

The total number of online buyers rose 7 percent during the first quarter and transactions per buyer also increased by 9 percent, though the average dollar amount per online order did decrease by 4 percent.

The best performing product categories – video games, consoles and accessories, magazines and books, consumer electronics, software and computers/peripherals/PDA – all saw sales increases of at least 13 percent year over year.

Coupled with last week’s promising retail sales data from MasterCard Advisors, e-tailers are off to a great start in 2011. Is it going to keep up?  Leave us your thoughts and comments below!

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Final 2010 E-commerce Data Released by Commerce Dept.

Posted in Ecommerce, Online Shopping, tagged , , , , , on February 17, 2011 | Leave a Comment »

February is quickly coming to a close but before we get too far into spring, let’s look back one last time and put a bow on the year that was in 2010 for online shopping, e-commerce and retail on the whole.

The U.S. Department of Commerce today unveiled its final, non-adjusted estimates for e-commerce sales last year and once again, we have data justifying all of our claims about the continued rise in popularity of online shopping.

All told, shoppers spent just over $165 billion online in 2010, which is a substantial increase of nearly 15 percent compared to 2009.  E-commerce sales growth also outperformed total retail sales for the year, which were up 7 percent in 2010.

And, not surprisingly, online sales continue to account for a larger percentage of all retail spending in the country as well–the $164.6 billion spent on the web in 2010 represents 4.2 percent of total retail spending, up from 3.9 percent total in 2009.

Total retail sales, including those online, reached $3.92 trillion last year.

While the entire year was mostly productive for the e-commerce industry, it was the fourth quarter and the holiday season in particular that really solidified the robust growth numbers for all of 2010.

Seasonally adjusted Q4 2010 online sales hit $44.1 billion, up 16.1 percent from the $38 billion a year ago as record numbers of Americans flocked to the web for holiday gifts.  E-commerce sales in the fourth quarter mirrored 2010 on the whole as well—total retail sales during the quarter were up 8 percent, half as high as online sales and web purchases represented 4.3 percent of all the retail spending during Q4.

Commerce’s data paints a slightly rosier outlook than the one we got from comScore a few weeks ago, though that is likely due to the differences in how each group’s information is collected.  The Commerce Department uses a quarterly survey of roughly 11,000 U.S. retailers to compile sales information while comScore relies almost exclusively on a pool of U.S. shoppers.

We welcome your comments!

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Final Numbers Put a Bow on the 2010 Holiday Shopping Season

Posted in Ecommerce, General News / Technology, Online Shopping, Retail, tagged , , , , on January 6, 2011 | 1 Comment »

It’s been just under two weeks since Christmas and the final data on online holiday sales has been unveiled by a pair of trusted industry resources reaffirming what we’ve been saying for the better part of a month: e-tailers struck gold with consumers this holiday shopping season.

comScore says that shoppers spent a record $32.6 billion online this holiday shopping season and that overall sales were 12 percent higher than 2009’s $29.1 billion, exceeding the 11 percent increase comScore had projected in late November.

Meanwhile, in a separate report, the MasterCard Advisors Spending Pulse says that December online sales increased 17.6 percent, the highest year-over-year gain since December of 2007 and a solid follow-up to the 12 percent of growth the SpendingPulse cited in November.

While MasterCard did not put a dollar figure on total December online sales in this round of data, another Spending Pulse report last month had forecasted that total e-commerce sales between October 31 and December 23 would be about $36.4 billion. That forecast would represent a 15.5 percent increase on 2009 holiday web spending.

Regardless, no matter how you slice it, it’s clear that more U.S. consumers chose to use the web as a means of leveraging the still-shaky economic situation they’re facing in order to buy their gifts this year and the result was the highest grossing holiday season in e-commerce history.

“The 2010 online holiday shopping season was a memorable one in which we saw spending rebound strongly from the recession of 2008 and 2009, and slightly exceed even our early expectations,” said comScore chairman Gian Fulgoni.

comScore compiled its data based on the web usage of more than 2 million online consumers who allow the company permission to keep tabs on their browsing activity.  The Spending Pulse report is based on the retail sales of at least 72,000 merchants nationwide.

Both reports also detailed which individual days throughout the season saw the highest e-commerce sales, though the results do differ a bit.

According to MasterCard, there were six days from November 30 to December 23 that recorded $1 billion in sales, though comScore reports only one-Cyber Monday, which was the busiest online shopping day in history.

The rest of comScore’s 5 busiest online shopping days were as follows:

Dec 13 (Green Monday): $954 million
Dec 6: $943 million
December 17 (Free Shipping Day): $942 million
December 16: $930 million

That’ll put a wrap on our holiday 2010 coverage, but it was a great year indeed!  Leave us your thoughts and comments!

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“Green Monday” Continues Big Holiday Shopping Season

Posted in Ecommerce, Online Shopping, Retail, tagged , , , , , on December 15, 2010 | Leave a Comment »

It’s getting to the point now where you really need to start questioning the intelligence of all those so-called ‘experts’ who were predicting a gloomy and disappointing holiday season for retailers back in the fall.

A December that has seen a steady stream of good news regarding record holiday spending continues, as comScore is reporting that this week’s “Green Monday” web sales were up 12 percent this year over 2009, resulting in the second-largest online shopping day in history.

Green Monday, the term many companies and industry experts have given to the second Monday of December due to its propensity for higher-than-average web spending, saw online sales of over $954 million this year, a significant increase over the $854 million during the same day in 2009. While that pales in comparison to the $1.028 billion in online sales racked up on Cyber Monday, the Green Monday output reinforces the notion that consumers are indeed spending enough to make this a historic year for holiday buying.

“Green Monday represented another banner day for the 2010 holiday season, ranking as the second heaviest online spending day on record behind this year’s Cyber Monday,” says Gian Fulgoni, comScore’s chairman.

Consumers have shelled out nearly $23.9 billion total this holiday shopping season, which started on November 1 according to comScore.  And there’s significant evidence indicating that figure will continue to rise.

For one, experts are predicting another huge sales day this Friday during the third-annual Free Shipping Day.  Created by the site freeshipping.org, it is bringing together 125 participating merchants who will offer shoppers free, guaranteed delivery by Christmas Eve.

Additionally, the results of a separate holiday shopping survey of 500 consumers by comScore points to even more late and last-minute spending.  Overall, 65 percent of the respondents said they’re not yet done with their holiday shopping but within that group, only 33 percent cite a lack of money as the reason.  Instead, 32 percent haven’t found the time to finish their holiday shopping, 11 percent said they’re waiting for last-minute deals and 6 percent count themselves in the “thrill seeker” category of shoppers who enjoy the excitement of pushing the envelope right up to the final minutes before Christmas.

“In recent years we have seen heavy spending days occur even later into the season as consumers continue to gain confidence in retailers and shippers being able to deliver their gifts in time for Christmas,” Fulgoni says.

This will likely be our last report on holiday spending until the final numbers come out in a few weeks.  But we definitely like the momentum that’s building for retailers and e-tailers after a strong Green Monday.  As always, we want to hear from you so leave us a comment!

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More Holiday Data: Sales Figures Continue to Impress

Posted in Ecommerce, Online Shopping, tagged , , , , , on December 9, 2010 | 1 Comment »

Everywhere you look it seems, more and more positive data is coming out about holiday spending and shopping here in 2010.

We’ve already done a few posts about the strong numbers many retailers and e-tailers are enjoying during the holiday season thus far and it appears that while the economy is still not where it should be, consumers are moving ahead and buying gifts at a rate not seen in quite a few years.

The latest round of data comes once again from comScore, which is reporting that consumers have spent more than $17.5 billion online already this holiday season.  That’s a 12 percent increase in spending during the same time period just a year ago.  And though sales have slowed some since the Thanksgiving holiday, comScore expects a pick-up again here in the middle of December.

Consumers have dropped close to $800 million online on four different days since the end of November, boosting the strong overall spending numbers.  Cyber Monday, which we already reported was the heaviest online spending day ever, is one of them.  But the day after Cyber Monday, November 30th, also posted strong sales numbers as well, totaling $911 million.

“We anticipated that the post-Cyber Monday period would experience a slight hangover after many of the retailers’ most aggressive deals and promotions expired, but we can expect to see activity begin to pick up again next week as we get into the middle part of December,” says Gian Fulgoni, comScore chairman.

What’s driving so many more consumers to the web for holiday shopping this year than ever before?  Two words: free shipping.

While free or discounted shipping has always been one of the clearest benefits to online shopping, it’s reaching what some might call epic proportions in 2010.  comScore says that more than half of every single online order placed since November 1 has included some type of free shipping incentive.  The week ending November 28 saw 55 percent of all orders include a free shipping incentive, a nearly 21 percent increase over the same week in 2009.  And that rate has stayed steady more recently, with 51.4 percent of all orders last week (through Sunday, December 5) shipping for free as well.

“Without a doubt, free shipping has become a critical driver of e-commerce purchasing, with the majority of consumers indicating that they will abandon their shopping carts if they get to check out and find that free shipping is not included,” Fulgoni says.  “Retailers have increasingly responded to this consumer demand, with market leaders Amazon and Wal-Mart, for example, both offering free shipping on virtually all transactions this season.”

And proof that shoppers are actively seeking out free shipping discounts and taking advantage of them: the average order value for transactions with free shipping included are about 30 percent higher right now than those without.

Leave us your comments!

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More Cyber Monday: New One-Day Record for Online Sales

Posted in Ecommerce, General News / Technology, Online Shopping, Retail, tagged , , , , , on December 2, 2010 | Leave a Comment »

Our regular readers are well aware of how much we were hyping Cyber Monday during most of November.  A flood of data throughout the month that seemed to point towards a return to respectability for retailers and e-tailers this holiday season after what has been a mostly lackluster 2010 had us thinking very positively as Thanksgiving rolled around.

But even we didn’t expect this!

According to data published today by our colleagues at comScore, Cyber Monday set a new one-day sales record, topping $1 billion for the first time ever and easily surpassing both last year’s Cyber Monday and the previous one-day record for online sales.  In fact, across the board Cyber Monday 2010 has become the biggest day in e-commerce history.

Total online sales for the day were about $1.028 billion, a significant 15.9 percent increase over last year’s Cyber Monday sales that totaled about $887 million.  The previous one-day high for online sales was December 15, 2009 when total sales hit $913 million.

A deeper look at comScore’s data reveals just how it was possible for this year’s Cyber Monday to set such lofty new highs in spending and sales.

For instance, there were more people shopping online this year (9 million total, up 3.4 percent compared to last year) and those shoppers completed more transactions than in 2009 too; 17.1 million to be exact, up 5.6 percent from the 16.2 million total transactions in 2009.

Perhaps more importantly, the average spending per buyer increased this year by nearly 12 percent, from $102.19 last year to $114.24.  The average online Cyber Monday purchase in 2010 was just over $60, more than 5 bucks higher than last year.

comScore seems to think an increased focus on marketing and promotions by retailers helped lead to the record breaking Cyber Monday.

“It’s important to note that some of the early strength in consumer spending is almost certainly the result of retailers’ heavier-than-normal promotional and discounting activity at this early point in the season,” says Gian Fulgoni, comScore’s chairman.  “So, while we anticipate that there will be more billion-dollar spending days ahead as we get deeper into the season, only time will tell if consumer online spending remains at the elevated levels we’ve seen thus far.”

The one item that did surprise us was data regarding where people shopped on Cyber Monday.   Unlike previous years, the majority of online shopping took place in peoples’ homes this year.  Shopping from work computers was down 4 percentage points 2009 and less than half of the total Cyber Monday spending came from people browsing while on the job. Dollars spent at home increased by 3.8 percentage points (rejoice all you employers!).

Leave us your thoughts and comments!

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comScore Raises Holiday E-commerce Sales Estimates

Posted in Ecommerce, Online Shopping, Retail, tagged , , , , on November 24, 2010 | Leave a Comment »

Buoyed by an unexpectedly strong start to holiday shopping through the first few weeks of November, comScore has raised its initial internal estimates for online spending this year and is predicting that total e-commerce sales this holiday season will surpass the pre-recession record levels posted back in 2007.

The research firm says that e-tail sales November 1-21 have totaled just over $9 billion, 13 percent higher than the same period in 2009.  As a result of that surprising three-week performance from the sector, comScore is now projecting 11 percent growth for e-commerce sales during the holidays, substantially higher than the early estimates of 7-9 percent growth.

“After a year in which we already saw growth rates return to solid positive territory, the recent strength in holiday spending has led us to raise our official forecast to 11 percent from the 7 to 9 percent we were initially expecting,” according to comScore chairman Gian Fulgoni.  “We are seeing online spending surpass the totals we saw in 2007 prior to the recession and expect sales this holiday season to be the highest on record with more than $32 billion being spent during the November and December period.”

comScore expects total e-commerce sales throughout November and December to reach about $32.4 billion, which would be roughly 11 percent higher than last year’s figures and would far surpass the then-record of $29.17 billion in holiday online spending that was set back in 2007.

“The beginning of the online holiday shopping season has gotten off to an extremely positive start, outperforming our earlier expectations,”  Fulgoni continues.  “Despite continued high unemployment rates and other economic concerns, consumers seem to be more willing to open up their wallets this holiday season than last.  While this early spending surge reflects, in part, heavy promotional activity on the part of retailers occurring earlier this season, it is nevertheless a very encouraging sign.”

comScore’s data is based on the online activity of more than 2 million consumers who allow the company to track their internet activity.

The projected uptick in holiday sales would seem to be consistent with the trends within comScore’s e-commerce sales data thus far this year as well.  Web sales for 2010 (prior to November 1) have amounted to nearly $110 billion, which is also up 9 percent compared to the period of January-October of 2009.

We wish everyone a safe and fun Thanksgiving, and good luck as you hit the stores and the web this weekend to start stocking up on holiday goodies!  Hopefully Ecommerce Junkie has in some way or another helped you become a better online shopper this year.

Now go out there and find some deals!

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Online Retail Spending on the Rise Thus Far in 2010

Posted in Ecommerce, Online Shopping, tagged , , , , , on August 11, 2010 | 2 Comments »

It seems as though most economic data that’s been released this year, be it from a government agency like the Commerce Department or via industry and trade groups reporting on specific sectors of our economy, has done little but induce depression.  Unemployment is up, the deficit is widening and as we’ve been reporting fairly frequently,  sales at brick and mortar retail stores continue to underperform.

Thankfully, we’re at least seeing one economic indicator that continues to point upward and provide some hope—online retail spending.

According to the Internet tracking firm comScore, e-commerce sales hit $32.9 billion in the second quarter this year, excluding online travel, auctions, automobiles and large corporate purchases.

Even though that was a little over 3 percent less than the total sales we saw in Q1, it still represents a 9 percent increase over sales during the second quarter last year.  Additionally, that makes three straight quarters of year-over-year gains in online sales.

Overall, online retail sales have totaled $66.9 billion through the first half of 2010, which is also a 9 percent increase over the $61 billion that was reported during the first six months of 2009.

“The second quarter’s continuation of the first quarter’s strong retail e-commerce growth rates is encouraging,” said comScore chairman Gian Fulgoni.  “We remain cautiously optimistic heading into the second half of the year, but will be keeping a close eye on unemployment rates, which, along with potential uncertainty in the stock market, could limit growth in e-commerce spending in the near term.”

comScore also reported that consumer electronics, software, computers and PDAs and books/magazines were the top performing product categories during the second quarter as well.

While impressive, the increase over the first half of 2010 is not the largest percentage reported for a six month period in recent years.  First half online sales in 2008 were up almost 12 percent from the year before.

Driving the strong growth of e-commerce sales thus far in 2010 has largely been upper income households, those with annual incomes of over $100,000.  That demographic is spending about 17 percent more online than they did last year.

Like comScore, we’re also cautiously optimistic about online retail sales for the rest of the year but it must be said that a strong first six months of 2010 certainly bodes well for the second half, which is full of shopping holidays. As always, leave us your thoughts and comments!

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Majority of Consumers Research Tech Purchases Online

Posted in Ecommerce, Merchant Tips, Online Shopping, tagged , , , , , , on July 28, 2010 | 1 Comment »

Consumer electronics and tech gadgets are continuously one of the most popular and sought-after product categories out there in the world of retail.  But due to their often higher price tags and complicated nature, they’re also the products that require the most consumer research and exploration.

According to new findings, though electronics and computer purchases seem to be split evenly between online and traditional storefronts, two-thirds of shoppers start their research for those products online—yet another indication that consumers are being diligent in their shopping research, particularly with bigger-ticket items.

The research, a combination of data from an online focus group and a poll this spring of about 1,200 shoppers, was conducted by our friends over at comScore and sponsored by search marketing firms Searchandise Commerce and iProspect, and delves into both how consumers research tech products and which items in particular they’re actually researching the most.

The poll’s respondents say that notebook computers and televisions are the top products researched or purchased online, at 52 and 42 percent respectively.  Home theater systems (12 percent) and audio speakers (11 percent) comprised the bottom of the list among consumer online choices.

As for the actual shopping process itself, two-thirds of those polled start their research online and go from there.   Only 10 percent of those polled say they start the shopping process at a physical store while 19 percent begin at a specific retailer’s website and 18 percent use a search engine to get things started.   Online consumer reports, auctions/classifieds, comparison shopping engines, social networking pages, blogs and various traditional media sources all rounded out the rest of the list.

Despite the obvious preferences for online research options, it’s also clear that the consumers polled still place a high value on the sensory evaluation of tech products, i.e. seeing, touching and interacting with those types of items in physical stores before making a decision.  Respondents said they go with online channels first because it’s easy to compare goods (61 percent) and find the information they need on those items (47 percent), while 51 percent cited the convenience of online shopping tools as well.

Other findings from the data:

-42 percent of consumer electronics shoppers start their research with a brand in mind, while 53 percent of those shopping for computers do the same;

–On average, shoppers consult 4.1 information sources during their research process both online and off;

–85 percent of those who ended up making a purchase did so within seven weeks of starting their research;

–94% of shoppers click on between one and 10 products delivered in site’s search results, and then look at price, product features and preferred brands as the main differentiators;

–Shoppers who prefer buying offline indicated that better prices and special promotions and discounts like free shipping would encourage them to spend more online.

As always, we welcome and encourage your feedback! Leave us a comment with your own preferences for electronics and computer purchases!

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Data Confirms that Social Networking Users Spend More Online

Posted in Ecommerce, Facebook Commerce, Merchant Tips, Online Shopping, tagged , , , , , , , on June 9, 2010 | Leave a Comment »

For months we’ve been running blog stories on the marriage of e-commerce and social networking, strongly recommending that retailers and merchants everywhere consider making social networking integration part of their immediate future.  Quite simply, social shopping is the “it” the trend that is going to define e-commerce for the foreseeable future.

And now we have even more data to justify that theory!

In fact, quite a few retailers aren’t just diving into the world of social networking, they’re embracing it in a big way.  Facebook’s recent changes with regard to how users can support or “like” brands in particular has led to even more retailers increasing their presence on the site.  As a result, many are being rewarded with customers who are not only regular social networking users, but some of the biggest online spenders out on the web.

Our colleagues over at comScore Inc. unveiled some data earlier this week that proves just that and  also shows that the landscape of social networking users is changing.  Their review of Q1 2010 e-commerce spending revealed that regular Facebook and Twitter users spend more online than run-of-the-mill internet users, and by quite a bit.

The report breaks down online shopping tendencies for both Facebook and Twitter regulars based on how much they visit the social networking sites—designating them “heavy”, “medium” and “light” users—compared to web surfers who don’t utilize either Facebook or Twitter (designated “non-visitors” by comScore).

Non-visitors overall purchased an average of less than $50 worth of products during the first quarter of the year, well below what their counterparts spent over the same three months.

On Facebook, there was a direct correlation between amount of time spent on the site and the amount of money spent online.  “Heavy” users, representing the top 20 percent of visitors based on time spent on the site, spent an average of $67 in the first quarter, while “medium” and “light” users spent about $61 and $50 respectively.  Those in the non-visitor category for Facebook represented the lowest amount money spent of any category for either site–$27.

There wasn’t quite the same connection between time spent and money spent for Twitter regulars, where “medium” users were actually the biggest spenders at $75 for the quarter and “light” visitors were right behind them at $73.  “Heavy” Twitter users reported $63 spent during the quarter.  Non-visitors reported average first-quarter spending of about $43.

One of the most important points to take away from all of this information is that those retailers who are targeting consumers on Facebook and Twitter are going after web users who actually do spend money online, which can only help contribute to the growth of sales on social networking sites.

But what really stands out to us in seeing such a spending disparity between the haves and have-nots of social networking is that the demographics of Facebook and Twitter’s audiences are changing.  With more middle-aged and older users joining the ranks of regular users, these sites are no longer dominated by younger users with lower disposable incomes.   Instead, Facebook and Twitter users on the whole are evolving into a more tech  savvy group overall, most of whom are well-versed in online shopping and have the resources to spend a bit more freely.

If you’re a merchant who has yet to branch out to social networking, this should be the final push you need to get going!  Leave us your thoughts and comments!

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