comScore Reports Heaviest Online Spending Due to Procrastinators
Apparently there’s a flurry of online spending–all by procrastinators and deal-seekers. This is leading to a strong final week of pre-Christmas online shopping. comScore is reporting that online sales are up 25 percent versus a year ago.
In comparison, it’s interesting to note what 10e20 reported a year ago about the 2006 holiday spending:
What does this mean? There is increased consumer trust in online marketplaces, and as more and more consumers continue to value the convenience of online shopping, more and more consumers will buy. 2007 will likely see a greater increase too.
Apparently Tamar was right last year; 2007 was a good year for online sales. December 10th, 2007 was seen as “Green Monday” and will continue to reign as the heaviest online spending day of the 2007 Holiday season.
comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ:SCOR) has released their update of theholiday season e-commerce/online spending for the first 51 days of the 2007 season, which was November 1 to December 21st, 2007. Apparently more than $26 billion has been spent online during the season, which marks a nineteen percent gain versus the same days last year.
2007 Holiday Season To Date vs. Corresponding Days* in 2006
Non-Travel (Retail) Spending
Excludes Auctions and Large Corporate Purchases
Total U.S. - Home/Work/University Locations
Source: comScore, Inc.
Billions ($)
Pct
Holiday Season to Date 2006 2007 Change
November 1 - December 21 $22.04 $26.29 19%
Thanksgiving Day (November 22) $0.21 $0.27 29%
"Black Friday" (November 23) $0.43 $0.53 22%
"Cyber Monday" (November 26) $0.61 $0.73 21%
"Green Monday" (December 10) $0.66 $0.88 33%
* Corresponding Shopping Days, Not Calendar Days
comScore is continuing to seen online spending strength as the holiday season comes to a close. The most recent five-day span ending 12/21/2007 had a 25 percent growth rate versus the same period last year. They said, in a report just out, that the heaviest online shopping days are behind us now, but some online retailers allowed deliveries before Christmas for orders to be placed by December 22nd, with an in-store pickup available for orders placed by Christmas Eve.
Green Monday, reported as being Monday, December 10, 2007, will be the heaviest individual spending day of the season with $881 million in sales. Cyber Monday, Monday, November 26, which represents the first major spike in online spending activity during the season, ranked as the 9th heaviest day with $733 million in sales.
Top 10 Online Spending Days of 2007 Holiday Season
Non-Travel (Retail) Spending
Excludes Auctions and Large Corporate Purchases
Total U.S. - Home/Work/University Locations
Source: comScore, Inc.
Dollars Spent
Day ($ Millions)
Monday, December 10
("Green Monday") $881
Tuesday, December 11 $819
Thursday, December 6 $803
Wednesday, December 5 $798
Tuesday, December 4 $776
Wednesday, December 12 $754
Monday, December 3 $753
Friday, December 7 $734
Monday, November 26
("Cyber Monday") $733
Thursday, November 29 $733
comScore 2007 Retail E-Commerce Forecast
Online Non-Travel (Retail) Holiday Consumer Spending
Excludes Auctions and Large Corporate Purchases
Total U.S. - Home/Work/University Locations
Source: comScore, Inc.
Billions ($)
Pct
2006 2007 Change
January - October $77.5 $93.6 21%
Holiday Season (Nov-Dec) $24.6 $29.5* 20%*
*comScore forecast
comScore November 2007 Search Engine Rankings
In other comScore news, comScore has released the November 2007 search engine rankings. This is the monthly comScore qSearch analysis of the search marketplace on the internet.
In November 2007, Google Sites share of core searches stood at 58.6 percent, virtually the same level as in October. Yahoo! Sites ranked second with 22.4 percent, followed by Microsoft Sites (9.8 percent), Ask Network (4.6 percent) and Time Warner Network (4.5 percent), which had the largest share point gain during the month (up 0.3 points).
comScore Core Search Report*
November 2007
Total U.S. - Home/Work/University Locations
Source: comScore qSearch 2.0
Share of Searches (%)
Point
Change
Novt-07 vs.
Core Search Entity Oct-07 Nov-07 Oct-07
Total Core Search 100.0% 100.0% 0.0
Google Sites 58.4% 58.6% 0.2
Yahoo! Sites 22.8% 22.4% -0.4
Microsoft Sites 9.8% 9.8% 0.0
Ask Network 4.7% 4.6% -0.1
Time Warner Network 4.2% 4.5% 0.3
* Based on the five major search engines including partner searches and
cross-channel searches. Searches for mapping, local directory, and
user-generated video sites that are not on the core domain of the five
search engines are not included in the core search numbers.
Total, us Americans conducted 10 billion searches at the core (main) search engines, representing a 5-percent decline versus October. With one less day in the month, November can be a seasonally softer month for search activity. Nearly 5.9 billion core searches were conducted at Google Sites during the month, while Yahoo! Sites recorded 2.2 billion.
comScore Core Search Report*
November 2007
Total U.S. - Home/Work/University Locations
Source: comScore qSearch 2.0
Search Queries (MM)
Percent
Change
Novt-07 vs.
Core Search Entity Oct-07 Nov-07 Oct-07
Total Core Search 10,527 10,030 -4.7%
Google Sites 6,151 5,882 -4.4%
Yahoo! Sites 2,405 2,249 -6.5%
Microsoft Sites 1,036 984 -5.1%
Ask Network 491 463 -5.8%
Time Warner Network 443 453 2.4%
* Based on the five major search engines including partner searches and
cross-channel searches. Searches for mapping, local directory, and
user-generated video sites that are not on the core domain of the five
search engines are not included in the core search numbers.
In the November 2007 analysis of the Top 50 properties worldwide where search activity is observed, Google Sites led the pack with 7.3 billion searches. Yahoo! Sites ranked second with 2.4 billion searches, followed by Microsoft Sites (984 million), and Time Warner Network (838 million). As a result of search activity likely related to holiday shopping, eBay and Amazon Sites both experienced an increase for the month with 489 million and 178 million queries, respectively.
comScore Expanded Search Query Report
November 2007
Total U.S. - Home/Work/University Locations
Source: comScore qSearch 2.0
Search Queries (MM)
Percent
Change
Novt-07 vs.
Expanded Search Entity Oct-07 Nov-07 Oct-07
Total Expanded Search 14,471 13,907 -3.9%
Google Sites 7,468 7,326 -1.9%
Google 6,184 5,923 -4.2%
YouTube/All Other 1,284 1,403 9.3%
Yahoo! Sites 2,577 2,395 -7.0%
Yahoo! 2,538 2,358 -7.1%
All Other 39 37 -5.1%
Microsoft Sites 1,058 984 -7.0%
MSN-Windows Live 1,021 947 -7.2%
Microsoft/All Other 37 37 0.0%
Time Warner Network 905 838 -7.4%
AOL 433 445 2.6%
Mapquest/All Other 472 393 -16.7%
eBay 472 489 3.5%
Ask Network 493 464 -6.0%
Ask.com 277 263 -5.1%
MyWebSearch.com/ All Other 216 201 -6.9%
Fox Interactive Media 483 436 -9.8%
MySpace 475 427 -10.0%
All Other 8 9 12.5%
Craigslist.org 214 207 -3.3%
Amazon Sites 146 178 22.0%
Facebook.com 152 119 -21.7%
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Dec 23rd 2007
That’s great news! Some of my sales are actually down though, which is a bummer.
Dec 26th 2007
There is increased consumer trust in online marketplaces, and as more and more consumers continue to value the convenience of online shopping, more and more consumers will buy.
Dec 26th 2007
Yes this year proves to be a great one in online trading and this is a remarkable achievement in web2.0 world…Hats off…This personally due to the more interactive way of online sales
Dec 26th 2007
Now that Christmas is past, it will be interesting to see if this effect carries over into the post-holiday period. Personally, this is when I like to do a lot of shopping (with the Xmas rush subsiding, etc.); and I know I’m not alone. Wonder how the online shopping world will fare this year.
Dec 26th 2007
Wow that really makes me want to get into e-commerce. I feel like I should be getting something ready for next year’s holiday season. It seems like it could be even bigger than it was this year.
Dec 27th 2007
Sales have plummeted for me for the holidays, I guess more people are doing traditional shopping at the malls.
Dec 29th 2007
I help people who are thinking about going bankrupt, so my sales drop over Christmas.
New year is when I get my surge of Website hits….Happy New Year!
Dec 30th 2007
Our sales were good this Christmas which confirms that procrastination is also strong in our industry.
Happy New Year
Jan 1st 2008
My ecommerce metrics have def been different this year. I’ve noticed better sales post-Christmas than normal.
Jan 2nd 2008
here in Germany, the time around christmas was very good for my ecommerce this year. Hopefully it will last for the whole year ;-).
Jan 29th 2008
Overall this year though spending has been down. I wonder if there is a difference that can been seen in net stats. If there was an spending met forecast there would be a net increase over all, and seen through out the coming years. You would have to decide what to do.
May 3rd 2008
Personally I think these kinds of numbers only happen before Christmas holidays. It can be possible for such patterns continue throughout the year, especially when going through times of economic slowdown.