The 2011 Christmas holiday season looks set to shatter records despite the looming poor economy and general unrest in parts of the US. According to ComScore, the first 20 days of November produced excellent results for online retailers; even topping the figures posted for the same period in 2010. The actual increase is around 14% but November 16 saw the busiest day yet. According to ComScore data, over $688 million was spent online.
Driving this frenzy of shopping is the reported increase in holiday promotions (up 33% on 2010 figures) from retailers and this trend has caused ComScore to make some rather dizzying predictions. The marketing and analytics insights company is predicting that online retail spending for the 2012 Christmas holiday season will shoot pass $37.6 billion.Of course, the US economy could do well with this sort of spending so I am sure the Commerce Secretary is pleased with the prediction. One can only imagine what the level of spending would be if more people had jobs and didn’t have to worry about their medium term survival.
All in all though, this is welcomed news; big online retailers like Amazon and eBay will of course swallow up a massive chunk of these sales, but I am sure the smaller players in the online retail space will be having a happy Christmas too.
Are you planning on spending a lot this Christmas? Let us know in the comments below.