The numbers are barely above those included in the report on last-minute shopping that comScore released a week ago, and for good reason — that report already covered the period from Nov. 1 to Dec. 21; the new numbers only add two more days. But with the holiday season over, we can now make an apples-to-apples comparison between 2007 and 2008. E-commerce sites brought in $25.54 billion during this year’s holiday season, compared to $26.33 billion last year. That drop comes despite an increase on key shopping days like Black Friday (Nov. 28) and Cyber Monday (Dec. 1).
[aditude-amp id="flyingcarpet" targeting='{"env":"staging","page_type":"article","post_id":102123,"post_type":"story","post_chan":"none","tags":null,"ai":false,"category":"none","all_categories":"business,","session":"D"}']What’s behind the stinginess? Probably a combination of the bad economy and the fact that there were five fewer shopping days between Thanksgiving and Christmas.
Despite the decrease, many of the top e-commerce sites saw their traffic go up compared to last year: Top site eBay fell 4 percent, but Amazon was up 7 percent, Wal-Mart was up 4 percent, and Apple was up 19 percent. Amazon earlier said it set a single-day record on Dec. 15. But since the online retailer only shared the number of items sold, not the dollar value, I wouldn’t be surprised if people bought cheaper items, bringing Amazon less money.
AI Weekly
The must-read newsletter for AI and Big Data industry written by Khari Johnson, Kyle Wiggers, and Seth Colaner.
Included with VentureBeat Insider and VentureBeat VIP memberships.
VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact. Learn More