Click away: Holiday Web shopping bounces back
ComScore says online holiday shopping is up a bit this year--3 percent so far. That's not saying a lot, since last year's sales were soft, but it's something.
I don't get "Black Friday," and I don't get the people who actually spend Black Friday at the mall. (Also, when did "doorbuster" become part of the argot? I missed the memo on that one). I do get the people who do their holiday shopping online, though, and there are more of them every day.
Here are the latest numbers from ComScore, which says that online holiday shopping is up a bit this year. That's not saying a lot, since last year's sales were soft. But for the record, sales are up 3 percent so far, and Web sales were up 11 percent on Black Friday.
But note that consumers say they're spending less overall than they did less year: they told interviewers they intend to spend 8 percent less than they did in 2008.
Not surprisingly, people spent a whole lot of time on the Web's most popular retail sites on Friday: Traffic at Amazon, Wal-Mart, Apple, Target, and Best Buy, sites were all up, ComScore reports.
Next up: Dutiful reporting on "Cyber Monday," tomorrow's artificial construct. Still, I'm not complaining. This is way better than trudging out to the mall for the annual "interview of shoppers in a parking lot" piece that newspapers still insist on assigning.