Doubling of Video Game Sales Spurs Online Holiday Shopping
Online shopping picked up sharply around Thanksgiving, paced by strong demand for video games, according to comScore.
More than $10.7 billion was spent online from Nov 1-26, marking a 17% gain versus the corresponding days last year. “Cyber Monday” saw $733 million in online spending, representing a 21% increase versus last year and an 84% jump from the average daily online spending totals during the preceding four weeks. This followed increases of 22% on “Black Friday” and 29% on Thanksgiving Day.
The hottest category continues to be video games, consoles & accessories, which more than doubled from the corresponding days last year. Sales of Nintendo Wii, PlayStation 3, and popular game Halo 3 continue to drive growth in the category.
The furniture, appliances & equipment category, consumer electronics and sport & fitness demonstrated above average growth. Apparel & accessories is now growing in line with the overall trend in online retail following a soft start to the season when warm weather dampened winter apparel sales. Online sales of toys are up only about one tenth for the season-to-date, with toy safety concerns appearing to be weighing down the category, according to comScore.
Cyber Monday once again set a record with $733 million in sales, the first time a single day of online retail spending has broken the $700 million threshold.
While that makes it the heaviest online shopping day on record, comScore expects that a number of individual shopping days during the coming weeks will surpass the Cyber Monday total, with some days potentially surpassing $800 million.
Some other notable findings for Cyber Monday 2007 include:
- The number of online buyers was up 38% compared to Cyber Monday 2006, while the average dollars spent per buyer was down 12%. The decline in dollars per buyer may be due to two factors — deeper and broader price discounts offered by online merchants this year and the fact that “new Cyber Monday buyers” tended to spend less online than returning buyers.
- 6% of the Internet users on Cyber Monday made an online purchase.
- 44% of Internet users on Cyber Monday shopped online (i.e. visited an online retail site or used a comparison shopping engine)
- 60% of dollars spent online on Cyber Monday came from work computers, with the balance coming from home and university computers.
Amazon Sites saw the most visitors on Cyber Monday 2007, up 26% gain versus the same day last year and up 50% compared to the average daily visitors during the four weeks leading up to Cyber Monday. Six out of the top ten retail sites saw their visitors more than double compared to the daily average over the four weeks preceding Cyber Monday. Apple’s modest gains are the result of consistently high traffic levels during the weeks preceding Cyber Monday.
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