"Black Friday eCommerce Up" ...to Cyber Monday

On Cyber Monday (aka the Monday after Black Friday) Roger Park of iMedia Connection wrote an interesting article regarding the rise in online shopping this holiday season. The article can be found here:
http://www.imediaconnection.com/news/12583.asp

I am quite impressed how much online purchasing has gone up in recent years, and this year is the one of the biggest yet.

"Online retail spending reached $8.31 billion during the first 24 days of November this year, marking a 23 percent increase versus the corresponding days in 2005."

"Black Friday saw online sales with $434 million spent, up 42 percent from last year" ....that's ONE DAY ya'll!

Here is the breakdown of the top visited shopping sites on Black Friday:
(# of unique visitors)
eBay - 7.5 million
Amazon.com - 3.4 million
Walmart.com - 3.2 million

What is truly impressive to me about these numbers is that the majority of online shoppers seem to be using sites that do not have traditional retail outlets. People are putting more of their trust into online shopping....even on eBay! This leads me to beleive that maybe online shopping is becoming more convenient and probably even safer. Think about it though...major sites consistently offer discounted prices AND discounted shipping making online shopping cheaper. Product descriptions and users reviews are becoming abundant and more complex. The wallet of the average American seems to be saying that the overall offers presented by online retailers are good enough...or maybe even better than going to the store. I'd rather deal with internet traffic than city traffic ANYday!

The way Americans shop is changing in a big way. This is probably the only thing that has sustained the shipping industry through recent downtimes in the economy. While the change is great for the USPS and FedEx, however, it presents new challenges to all retailers across the board. Websites aren't just for getting information to customers anymore...they're for obtaining customers.

As an up-and-coming computer scientist, this news makes me quite happy...not necessarily because I prefer to shop online (although I usually do), rather because it creates massive competition between online retailers forcing them all to improve to keep up...and lets face it online retailing still has a loooong way to go, particularly when it comes to user interface design....oh but that's a whole 'nother rant....

Cheers!