Christmas sales are looking healthy

The great thing about the US is access to data. Huge amounts of broadly collected and publicly available shared shopper data that allows people to make decisions on how to talk to shoppers.

Last week I talked about how big the surge in retail store sales had been year on year, and this week it was the turn of online shopping to act as the benchmark of how well US retailing, the US shopper and the economy are travelling. The answer was good in early November, very good by the end of November and excellent by Cyber Monday (the first Monday in December).

US online sales on Cyber Monday have been the key online shopping indicator since 2009. From among the data in the IBM benchmark Cyber Monday Report 2011, and reports from online retailers and technology companies, it’s clear that the US is tracking for a very strong retail holiday season. But the question is, how strong?

Well, 10 million people bought US$1.25 billion of products online over a 24 hour period in 2011. Cyber Monday this year was up 32.9% compared to the same day last year. Cyber Monday 2011 also saw 29% higher sales than Black Friday 2011 with more sales via the web in one day than via traditional retail stores. Just so that’s clear, more sales value was truncated via the Internet on its biggest sales day of the year, than was transacted in stores on its biggest sales day of the year.

These sales were across a broad gamut of categories and items across apparel, health and beauty, home goods not the traditional and obvious technology, books and home entertainment categories.

According to ComScore, half of the shopping was done from work computers, up slightly from 2010, which highlights the attractiveness of convenience to shoppers.

What about smartphones and tablets? Up 3.9% compared to the same time last year, 10.8% of shoppers used mobile devices to visit sites and mobile sales value grew to 6.6% of sales which was also up from 2.3% in 2010.

As the lines continue to blur between purely online and traditional retailers offering their core shoppers the choice and convenience of the online channel, all retailers are out there promoting compelling online deals, and even more are offering free shipping offers this year.

While in Australia and New Zealand we don’t have access to the breadth and depth of online data that the US has, we can safely assume that the trends we are seeing in the US will also be playing out on PCs, tablets and smartphones in offices and homes, on trains and in coffee shops across Australia this month.

Happy shopping!

In his role as CEO of CROSSMARK, Kevin Moore looks at the world of retailing from grocery to pharmacy, bottle shops to car dealers, corner store to department stores. In this insightful blog, Kevin covers retail news, ideas, companies and emerging opportunities in Australia, NZ, the US and Europe. His international career in sales and marketing has seen him responsible for business in over 40 countries, which has earned him grey hair and a wealth of expertise in international retailers and brands. CROSSMARK Asia Pacific is Australasia’s largest provider of retail marketing services, consulting to and servicing some of Australasia’s biggest retailers and manufacturers.