With an estimated $4 billion in online revenue at stake this year, e-tailers and consumers alike were pumped for holiday shopping. Here›s a look at some of the latest numbers tracking the e-commerce blowout:
© New York-based Media Metrix reported a 37 percent increase over last year in e-commerce traffic for the week preceding Christmas, with significant traffic boosts to Fedex.com and UPS.com. Media Metrix also reported continued double-digit increases at flower/gifts and e-greetings sites through December.
© Traffic to e-commerce sites increased by more than 18 percent from the day before Thanksgiving through Dec. 26, according to the E-Commerce Holiday Index compiled by Milpitas, Calif.-based Nielsen/NetRatings. The big winners so far appear to be toys, electronics and apparel, which all experienced double-digit percentage increases in recent months.
© While the total dollar amount from online sales surged 22 percent from the week beginning Nov. 29 to the week beginning Dec. 6, the number of individual orders declined across merchant sites, according to New York-based affiliate marketing network LinkShare.
© Residents of California, New York and Texas were tops when it came to online spending across the LinkShare Network of merchant sites during the week of Dec. 6.
© Only 10 percent of Web sites said they were capable of dealing with an overnight surge of twice the volume of normal traffic, especially in the areas of Web response rates, levels of service and shipping services, according to New York-based Jupiter Communications.
© In a study by Credit Suisse First Boston, nothing-but-Net e-tailers had a 65 percent on-time delivery rate, while clicks-and-bricks merchants fared better, with an 80 percent delivery rate during the holidays.
© Bargain hunters may have flocked to the Web to find savings, but luxury-goods sites also did well: Fine art purveyor Guild.com, Madison, Wis., reportedly rang up an online order worth $53,000 and claimed an increased look-to-book conversion rate of 200 percent in December.„KC
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