Online holiday purchasing up 26%

PC World is reporting that the early numbers for this holiday shopping season
show a 25% increase in online purchasing (for a total of $21.7 billion) between
November 1 and December 20 in the U.S. alone. The increase shown between
December 18 and 20 was 35%.

The article says social commerce sites (where consumers can compare prices and
features and read what other users have to say), blogs, and improved shipping
all contrbuted to the increase.

Did you purchase gifts online this year? I did about half of my holiday shopping
online--which for me is probably a 50 percent increase over last year. I only
made two trips to the mall. Nice.

Yes I purchased about 80% of my gifts online this year many before the Holiday
Shopping season.

The rest required instore purchases like the dodgey Nintendo DS in Coral, a
custom acoustic guitar and some last minute gift ideas.

Its hard to say what is responsible for the increase in sales, but awareness of
good deals is certainly one of them and the fact that Google is paying people
for their personal information in Google Checkout may be another..

I generally frequent these dealsites and perform Froogle and Pricegrabber
searches before clicking the submit button in my online shopping cart.

I believe it is the best way to do your shopping. I would say I got most of my
shopping complete fairly quickly by using the net.

Tae

>like the dodgey Nintendo DS in Coral<

LOL! This is what my kids gave me for Christmas--except they were all sold out,
so my son printed a fake coral DS cover and taped it to an old VHS tape as an
IOU for whenever the next shipment of Coral DSs arrive. :)

Thanks for the links and the good reminder about Froogle! I'd heard several
month ago that they were discontinuing Froogle and didn't even think to look
before I shopped this year...