ETD: 838 Holiday Sales Topping Projections; Online Holiday
Shopping up 41%; Second Coming of E-Commerce
E-Tailer's Digest
etd_post at gapent.com
Tue Nov 30 12:52:54 GMT 2004
E-Tailer's Digest --- Everything for the Retailer
Issue #0838 November 30, 2004
George Matyjewicz, Moderator mailto:georgem at gapent.com
Published by: GAP Enterprises, Ltd. http://www.etailersdigest.com
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CONTENTS
[1] Greetings
[2] Holiday Sales Topping Projections
[3] Online Holiday Shopping up 41%
[4] Second Coming of E-Commerce
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[1] Greetings.
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Hi All:
It looks like Black Friday and the past weekend was a retail
success. Sales were up online and off and it is expected to be a great
holiday shopping season. At least for most retailers. Wal-Mart revised
their predictions downward. Interesting to note that they did not offer
any super bargains as did other retailers. So, did people shop because of
the super 5:30 AM bargains (as offered by many stores) or is it really
going to be a good season?
It doesn't matter how great sales are for retailing, and stats are just
that - statistics of what others have done. The important measure is very
simple - how well did you do, and how much did you put into your pocket
this year? How was your holiday sales kick off weekend? Did it turn out
as good as expected?
Stats are quite impressive. Offline they are topping projections. Online
they are up 41% over last year. And how did retailers do outside the
U.S.? Is this season as impressive?
One reporter writes about the "Second Coming of E-Commerce." Is it really
a second coming, or are we looking at new ways to produce results? What is
different about online improvements? Offline, major retailers succeeded
because of tools and technology. Online it's the same thing. Can you
imagine displaying a catalog of merchandise online years ago in the days of
the 56k modem? We actually had one client who tried to do so, and it was a
disaster. They were far ahead of their time. What do you think?
25 days until Christmas - 3 1/2 weeks! Are you ready? What are you doing
this year to increase business?
Tell us about your business which will remain for posterity at
our "Members: Who Are You?" site. Anything to do with the retail world,
i.e., supplier, retailer, consulting,
etc. http://etailersdigest.com/resources/members/index.htm And we have a
form there for you to tell us about you. As I said when I first proposed
this idea, we have "known" each other for a long time, yet we often don't
know anything about each other. So, tell us who you are and what you do.
Now, let's get to everything for the retailer.
Sincerely
George Matyjewicz, PhD
Chief Global Strategist, GAP Enterprises, Ltd.
mailto:georgem at gapent.com
http://www.etailersdigest.com
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[2] Holiday Sales Topping Projections
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Near-record crowds yielded a surprisingly strong surge in weekend sales.
ShopperTrak of Chicago estimated retail sales for Friday leapt 10.8% over
last year to hit $8 billion. ShopperTrak estimates sales based on data
collected via 40,000 cameras installed in malls and other stores. The
National Retail Federation projected sales for the Christmas season would
be up 4.5% this year, compared with a 5.1% increase last year.
Charge-card data collected by Visa USA indicate that cardholders charged a
combined $7.4 billion on their Visa cards at retail stores on Friday and
Saturday, a 14.3% increase over the same period last year. Use of debit
cards was up sharply, possibly the result of worries about debt: Shoppers
spent $3.3 billion using debit cards in the two-day period, a 20.2% rise
over last year; consumers' credit-card spending exceeded $3.8 billion for
the period, an 8.8% rise. (The remaining $276 million in sales were made on
corporate charge cards; the data reflect both increased spending and the
effect of more cards in use.)
Much of the action took place at higher price points. "It's the upper end
that's really carrying the day," says Bloomingdale's Chairman Michael
Gould. Bloomingdale's, a unit of Federated Department Stores Inc., decided
to be "less promotional," holding prices firmer this year and opting
against its usual pre-Thanksgiving sales event. Yet sales are still running
ahead of last year.
NorthPark Center, an upscale Dallas mall with tenants including Neiman
Marcus and Tiffany's, said Saturday traffic was 36% greater than the same
day last year. "And the stores posted amazing sales results," says
marketing director Christine Szalay. "The stores that exceeded their
projections were clearly the luxury tenants. One designer shoe store
reported a 63% sales increase over last year."
Some midprice retailers felt the benefits too. Bargains such as two- and
three-carat diamond bracelets, priced at $149 and $299, respectively, drew
a line of shoppers to J.C. Penney Co. stores on Friday long before the 5:30
a.m. opening. Penney says cashmere and fur-trimmed sweaters and scarves
sold well, as did pet clothes. Penney's Black Friday sales this year
exceeded those of the past few years, but the retailer is staying
restrained. "We remain conservative on our outlook for the season," says a
spokesman, Quinton Crenshaw.
At a Coral Springs, Fla., Sears store, 600 to 800 people waited for the
doors to open at 6 a.m. "I've been here 32 years, and I've never seen
anything like that," said John Hendrickson, district general manager for
the Miami area. Shoppers snapped up DVD players marked down to $19.99 from
$39.99, $49.99 digital cameras and $4.99 Barbie dolls. Craftsman tools and
Lands' End apparel were also popular, company spokesman Chris Brathwaite said.
Promotions -- especially for electronics -- were rampant. Kohl's Corp.
normally discounts winter coats, Fisher-Price toys and diamond bracelets on
Thanksgiving weekend and doesn't usually sell electronics. But this year,
it sold a stash of portable DVD players, marked down to $159.99, from
$229.99. On Friday, before the 5:30 a.m. opening, 75 or so shoppers were
outside one of the retailer's suburban Chicago stores, clutching the ad for
the portable DVD in frozen fingers. When the doors opened, customers
quickly spotted the few dozen boxes on a folding table and snatched them up
as fast as a worker could set them out.
There was a 35-minute wait to check out at a Best Buy store in north Dallas
at 7:30 a.m. The big draw was a Norcent DVD player priced at $14.99 after
two mail-in rebates. The item sold out in 15 minutes. Josie Bueño, a
28-year-old accountant, bought one, plus an Epson printer for $49.99 after
mail-in rebate and a slew of $5 DVDs.
Wal-Mart on Saturday took the unusual step of slashing its prediction for
November sales growth, citing disappointing holiday sales at its stores.
Wal-Mart predicted that November same-store sales in the U.S. would grow by
only 0.7% over a year ago, far less than the 2% to 4% rise the retailer had
expected. J.C. Penney Co. and Sears, Roebuck & Co. also remained cautious
about overall holiday sales, despite dazzling customer turnout.
URL for this article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110147654945684230,00.html
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[3] Online Holiday Shopping up 41%
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As expected, online retailers had a solid weekend, with nearly one in three
consumers (29.3 percent) choosing to do some of their holiday shopping over
the Internet, according to a National Retail Federation survey.
Specifically, Nielsen//NetRatings reported that online shopping jumped 11
percent in unique shoppers on Friday as compared to the same day in 2003.
More people than ever chose to let their fingers do their holiday shopping.
Consumers spent $250 million online on Friday, a 41% increase over the $174
million they spent online on the same day a year ago, according to comScore
Networks, a Reston, Va., company that tracks Web site activity. For the
November-December holiday season, online spending is expected to surpass
$15 billion -- marking as much as a 26% increase over last year, comScore says.
Historically, the post-Thanksgiving weekend isn't especially strong for
online spending because so many people are out in stores. The busiest
shopping day on the Web, according to Verisign, is the Monday after
Thanksgiving, when consumers get back to their high-speed, broadband
Internet connections at the office.
In another report, Forrester Research estimated that online sales from
Thanksgiving weekend to Christmas will increase 42% over a year ago to
$12.2 bil. The results include travel and auction sites. Jupiter Research,
a division of Jupitermedia Corp., projects that online sales will be up 21%
to $17 bil for the November and December period. The results exclude travel
and auction sites.
From Nov. 1 through Nov. 30, online retail sales reached $5.89 bil, a 22%
increase from $4.85 bil for the same period a year ago, according to
BizRate.com. Total online sales - excluding travel and auctions - for the
week ended Sunday was $1.26 bil, compared with a little more than $1 bil in
the year-ago period, according to comScore Network's preliminary data.
Still, despite its growth, online sales are expected to account for only
4.5% of annual total retail sales this year, up from 3.6% last year,
according to Shop.org, an arm of the National Retail Federation. Total
retail sales include business from tickets, travel, events and auctions.
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[4] Second Coming of E-Commerce
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Roopak Patel reports in E-Commerce Times that savvy online retailers
already recognize that having intelligence on their competitors' sites can
be extremely valuable in determining the right strategy for delivering
optimal performance, giving users the most intuitive user experience and
even increasing the conversion rate for actual sales!
Consumers have steadily embraced the Web for their retail shopping needs
over the last 10 years. Online spending in 2003 was almost US$55 billion
and is expected to top $60 billion for 2004, according to reports from
eMarketer.
Although some shoppers still have concerns about credit card security or
the inability to touch and feel the merchandise, they have been attracted
to online shopping by snazzy, eye-catching sites with easy navigation that
often convert "window shoppers" into paying customers.
However, keep in mind that the very ease that the Web presents is a
double-edged sword for your business. It is just as easy for visitors to
your site to switch to another vendor.
Online retailers were the first to take advantage of the Internet during
the heyday of the Internet bubble. They projected astronomical growth
figures for their online revenues. Much to their chagrin, it was not meant
to be; the bubble burst almost as precipitously as it inflated. In the last
two years, however, an e-commerce renaissance has driven online revenues to
record highs. So what is the difference between then and now?
According to a recent study by the Aberdeen Group, most retailers already
use a multichannel approach when distributing their merchandise or
services. Aberdeen found that only 6 percent of the retailers use a single
channel.
A good way to analyze overall market indicators is to look at trends,
expectations and directions indicated in a published index. Much like the
Dow Jones Industrial Average drives the overall sentiments of the equity
market, a comparable index in the online retailer space can be extremely
valuable for understanding these key indicators -- especially when it comes
to performance.
Savvy online retailers already recognize that having intelligence on their
competitors' sites can be valuable in determining the right strategy for
delivering optimal performance, giving users the most intuitive user
experience and even increasing the conversion rate for actual sales.
Fundamentally, the need for tracking the metrics that matter for making
improvements, establishing normal patterns of behavior and having a good
understanding of how your site compares to others are essential if the
company wants to attract (and more importantly, retain) customers to their
Web store.
For example, pages that download slowly may give customers a negative image
of the retailer, one not serious about their investment in the online
channel. In addition, a lengthy checkout process may deter a wavering
shopper from completing the entire transaction. Problems such as these
could also reflect on the future experiences that the customer might have
with that site -- that is, if they return at all.
Bottom Line. Remember that how a Web site performs reflects the company's
overall brand, the speed and accuracy of the delivery and fulfillment, and
ultimately the quality of the goods or service. In fact, many customers
would be willing to pay a premium for a better experience compared to other
sites. Smart Web retailers just have to remember to accurately assess the
quality of their sites by using available means and jump on any opportunity
that gives them a leg over their competition.
The revenue potential for online retailers is a significant one and is
expected to increase over the next few years. For those retailers who want
to take full advantage of this channel, it would make sense to conduct
ongoing, comprehensive analysis of their customers' online experience,
including site design, navigation and, most importantly, performance.
Details at...
http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/38111.html
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