Even before gas prices started dropping, consumers and retailers alike were predicting that this would be another strong online holiday shopping season.
"eMarketer forecasts that this holiday season (November and December) Web merchants will ring up sales of $24.3 billion," says Jeffrey Grau, eMarketer senior analyst and the author the new Online Holiday Shopping Preview. "That's a healthy 22.1% more than last year."
eMarketer's Q4 2006 retail e-commerce sales forecast is $33.2 billion, accounting for nearly 31% of all 2006 online retail sales.
"Sales growth will come this holiday season less from e-commerce newcomers and much more from experienced online buyers who increase their spending," says Mr. Grau.
One of the reasons for that is that Internet retailers have successfully learned how to extend the length of the online holiday shopping season by guaranteeing delivery the week prior to Christmas. In fact, last year, according to comScore Networks, the peak sales day of the online holiday season was Monday, December 12, and the peak week, ending December 11, produced $3.1 billion in sales.
"It is worth noting," says Mr. Grau, "that the online holiday shopping numbers come amid less than robust overall holiday forecasts."
In September, the National Retail Federation (NRF) estimated that 2006 US holiday sales would be $457 billion, an increase of only 5% over last year and the lowest growth in three years.
Despite somewhat gloomy forecasts for other sectors, online retailers are optimistic.
An October 2006 survey cosponsored by Shop.org, the e-commerce arm of the NRF, and Shopzilla, a comparison shopping site, found that 72% of online retailers expect good (15% or more) year-over-year online sales growth this holiday season. 21% of them expect online sales growth of 75% or more.
"Another good sign for online merchants this year is that not only will online customers be shopping later, they will also start shopping earlier," says Mr. Grau. "They are expanding the online sales season from both ends."
The Shop.org/Shopzilla "2006 eHoliday Mood Survey" found that 20% of online shoppers planned to start their holiday gift buying on the Internet earlier this year than last year. More than one-third (34.9%) of the respondents said they intended to start shopping online before November, and 21% said they would begin their shopping in October.