With blizzard-like weather bombarding the East Coast in the crucial last shopping days before Christmas, shoppers stayed home—a negative for brick-and-mortar shops, but a very good thing for online retailers.
In fact, during the last weekend before Christmas—a typically busy time for retailers—online sales were up 13 percent compared to a year ago, reports comScore, a marketing research firm. Overall, sales for the week reached $4.8 billion, an 11-percent increase versus 2008.
Brick-and-mortar shops, however, experienced a 12.6-percent drop in sales on Saturday alone—the largest year-over-year sales decline since 2002, notes Bill Martin, ShopperTrack's co-founder.
"The major snowstorms hitting the Eastern Seaboard over the weekend appear to have given holiday e-commerce an additional boost, resulting in the heaviest online spending week on record at $4.8 billion," notes Gian Fulgoni, ComScore's chairman.
To date, online holiday spending this year has reached $25.5 billion, a 4-percent increase compared to 2008, comScore notes.
Auctiva staff writers constantly monitor trends and best practices of those selling on eBay and elsewhere online. They attend relevant training seminars and trade shows and regularly discuss the market with PowerSellers and other market experts.
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