Today (Monday 6th December) is set to be the busiest online shopping day of 2010 in the lead-up to Christmas, as sales and traffic levels have begun to gather momentum towards Mega Monday, according to new forecasts from key players in the UK ecommerce sector.
Sales levels have been steadily increasing since Sunday 28th November, with the sales increase on Wednesday far higher than that of Monday 29th, which was Cyber Monday in the US.
Wednesday was the first of the month, and the sharp rise could have been influenced by everybody now having been paid for November.
While the rise in online activity could have been influenced by the recent weather conditions, it is very difficult to tell as it has coincided with the festive shopping period accelerating and the beginning of a new month, when traffic generally rises.
Research carried out by eDigitalResearch recently found that 26.6% of people intend to do more shopping online than they did last year. We will look to publish some data after the 6th reviewing how the sales were recorded over the big-selling days.
David Smith, Managing Director at IMRG, said: “2010 looks set to be another bumper year for online, with sales for Super Sunday and Mega Monday estimated to reach over half a billion at the end of a week when the festive spend really kicked in. We estimate that £6.4bn will be spent in December alone, with total online sales for November and December set to reach £12.4bn. Consumers have looked to spread the costs of Christmas a bit more this year due to the economic climate, but December 6th is the day that our retailers expect sales activity to be at its highest.”
Robin Goad, Research Director at Hitwise UK, said: “Last weekend was certainly the busiest of the pre-Christmas season so far this year, but the clue that we are not quite there yet is the comparison between traffic levels on Sunday (November 28th) and Monday (November 29th).
For most of the year, UK Internet visits to retailers peak on the Sunday and drop off on the Monday, and only on Mega Sunday / Monday do the traffic levels match. […] this didn’t happen this Sunday and Monday, implying that Mega Monday is still to come – most likely next Monday.”
Matthew Cheng, MD of eCoupons.com and creator of CyberMonday.co.uk, said: “According to our CyberMonday.co.uk/YouGov survey, 45% of online UK adults plan to shop online between 29th November and 6th December with 27% to spend over 200 GBP online for Christmas gifts. Almost three fifths (57%) of those aged 25 to 44 plan to shop Cyber Monday week versus just 35% aged 55+. This year, a number of UK retailers are having Cyber Monday sales including Pixmania, The Gift Experience, Adobe, Gone Digging, Kaspersky and Panda Security.”
“We are expecting Monday 6th December to be the busiest day of 2010,” said Brian McBride, Managing Director of Amazon.co.uk. “Last year on the corresponding day, we received orders for 2 million items at a rate of around 23 items ordered per second. That meant that a delivery truck was leaving an Amazon fulfilment centre every 4 minutes and 19 seconds.
“Amazon Kindle is the most-wished for and most-gifted product on Amazon.co.uk and we expect other big sellers to include ‘Bananagrams’ from our Toys & Games Store, ‘Call of Duty: Black Ops’ from our Video Games Store and ‘Toy Story 3’ from our DVD and Blu-ray Store. This is likely to be our biggest Christmas on record as more and more customers discover the great selection, low prices and convenience available. With more orders than ever expected, we have expanded our fulfilment network to a total of six fulfilment centres in the UK covering 3 million sq ft – that’s around the same size as 37 football pitches.”
Andrew Brem, Multichannel and Services Director for Best Buy Europe said: “This Christmas is Best Buy’s first in the UK and we’re expecting demand for free-motion and 3D gaming, Samsung GalaxyTab and Apple iPad tablets as well as home theatre and entertainment products to be brisk. The Best Buy UK online store brings something new and different to consumers wanting to find out about and buy the latest and greatest technology. Customers can take advantage of our ‘Reserve & Collect’ service and an extended returns period up until 9th January, which we know will be really important for customers buying Christmas gifts.”
Zak Edwards, Managing Director at Prezzybox, said: “The day will be hectic. People will realise that there is only 2 and a bit weeks to go to the big day and think ‘I’d better get shopping!’ Consequently conversion rate jumps massively in December reaching between 5 and 6%, showing over 100% increase. I don’t see this year being any different.
“There are certain product categories which have flown this year. Possibly induced by people entertaining at home, Cookery gifts like the Mini Cupcake Maker and the Candy Floss Machine for example have been huge, whilst there’s a real feeling of nostalgia with toys like the Big Trak and the Rolf Harris inspired Stylophone proving to be extremely popular. The Average Basket value slowly rises throughout November and December as people begin to buy more products. Our research suggest that users like to complete their purchases from a few a site as possible, which gives Prezzybox a distinct advantage as we have such a wide product portfolio.”
Source: www.imrg.org
