Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Old News Now, But Egad

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- No one expected real growth in the e-commerce sector this holiday season, but few expected it to actually drop as it did.

ComScore's end-of-season online sales figures put the tally at $25.5 billion, down 3% from $26.3 billion a year ago. To come up with those figures, ComScore measured the same number of days, this year looking at sales between November 1 and December 26.

The total falls short of ComScore's original forecast of flat e-commerce sales. Fourth quarter e-commerce sales to date are down 4%, a reversal of the period from January to October, when e-commerce sales grew 9% over the year-ago period.

Retail has battled a number of negative forces this year: a poor economy, shortened holiday season (five fewer days between Thanksgiving and Christmas this year vs. last year) and a wet, snowy weekend before Christmas.

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