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Holiday
Online Shoppers Shell Out $6.2 Billion Results
from a survey completed by Gartner Group, Inc., show that 24.5 million Americans
bought gifts online this past holiday season. Gartner surveyed 2,193 adults and
learned that consumers spent nearly $6.2 billion online for holiday gifts. That’s
the good news. The bad news is that Gartner estimates that $2.6 billion in
online sales were lost when consumers who bought holiday gifts online in 1999
failed to return to the Web for their 2000 holiday gifts. Gartner estimates that
if these consumers had bought on the Web this past season, online retailers
would have seen another $2.6 billion in spending. “Loss
of repeat customers clearly points to the CRM and customer service issues faced
last year by retail Web sites,” said David Schehr, a research director at
Gartner. “This level of churn from one season to the next shows the
opportunities as well as the risks for retailers. Overall, three-quarters of
these online gift buyers were very satisfied with their gift-buying experience
online; so most should be back next year. But retailers can’t rest on their
laurels if they plan on growing their e-commerce activities.” Furthermore,
most of the money was spent at a handful of sites, according to Gartner.
Eighty-seven percent of the consumers who bought on the Web told Gartner they
spent their holiday gift dollars at a maximum of three different retailers’
sites. Amazon.com was the most dominant purchasing site, with over a quarter of
all buyers (28 percent) purchasing at least some gifts there. The
survey also found that consumers preferred to shop with strong brand name
vendors. Only four of the top 15 Internet retailers were “pure-play” dot.com
retailers. These four e-tailers were Amazon.com, eBay.com, eToys.com and Buy.com
(see Table on page 3). While only four pure-play Internet retailers made the top
15 sites, these four e-tailers were used by almost half (45%) of all the buyers
who purchased gifts online. (Note, however, that eToys’ fine performance over
the holiday season did not stave off a bankruptcy that was filed on March 7.) “Relatively
few pure-play Internet commerce sites have been able to break through the
clutter, and the fact that less than one-third of the top fifteen online sites
for this past holiday season were strictly online reinforces that,” said
Schehr. “Other Gartner research shows that most people find their shopping
sites through offline means, so the physical presence and brand history of
multi-channel retailers have helped these companies efficiently gain business
for their online channels during the holiday season, and will continue to so in
the coming year.” “Consumers
don’t yet see the Web the same way they see a shopping mall, as a place to
stroll, browse and window shop in search of gifts,” continued Schehr.
“Consumers continue to show that they use sites they are already familiar
with, and in most cases for only those things they’ve come to expect at the
sites.” The
idea of shopping at a “cybermall” was not as prevalent in the survey results
by Gartner. When asked, 70 % of online gift buyers stated that they generally
had a particular item or product in mind when they went online to buy.
Twenty-two percent of online gift buyers said that they generally browsed a
variety of sources without a specific item in mind. |
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copyright 2001 · The Green Sheet, Inc. |
