Holiday e-tail sales up, satisfaction down

As the holiday season wound down, U.S. residents kept on shopping significantly more than they did in 2006, particularly on the day after Christmas, but they also reported being less satisfied with e-tailers, according to a pair of studies.
Between Nov. 1 and Dec. 27 -- the first 57 days of the holiday season -- U.S. shoppers spent almost US$28 billion in online retail purchases, up 19 percent compared with the same period in 2006, according to comScore.

Shoppers spent $545 million on Dec. 26, more than doubling the spending on that day in 2006, as they took advantage of "late-season" offers and discounts, according to comScore.

Still, it looks like online spending growth for the 2007 holiday season will fail to meet comScore's 20 percent forecast, and fall way below the 26 percent growth registered during this period in 2006.

ComScore chalks up the smaller-than-expected growth to several factors, including warm weather in early November and various economic challenges this year, including higher gas prices, the real estate crunch and a "jittery" stock market, the company said Sunday.

Another important metric that dropped this holiday season compared with 2006's was customer satisfaction, according to ForeSee Results, a provider of online customer-satisfaction measurement services.

A survey of more than 11,000 shoppers revealed that, on a 100-point scale, customer satisfaction with the largest 40 e-tailers dropped, in aggregate, to 74 points, down 1 point from the 2006 holiday season, according to ForeSee. It conducted the survey in conjunction with FGI Research using the methodology of the University of Michigan’s American Customer Satisfaction Index.

Still, the spending growth in online shopping this holiday season, even at 19 percent, would greatly outpace the growth of overall U.S. retail holiday spending, forecast at 4 percent by the National Retail Federation.

That 4 percent growth rate -- which would put 2007 holiday season retail spending in the U.S. at almost $475 billion -- would fall below the 10-year average of 4.8 percent and be the slowest since 2002, according to the National Retail Federation.