Final Week of Online Holiday Shopping Fails to Meet Expectations

December 30, 2013

This article is included in these additional categories:

Connected Device Comparisons | Digital | Mobile Phone | Retail & E-Commerce | Social Media | Tablet

comScore-Holiday-E-Commerce-Through-Dec-22-2013-v-2012-Dec2013E-commerce had been a bright spot this holiday season, but it got a little dimmer as the season drew to a close, says comScore. After posting strong year-over-year growth rates during key dates early on, comScore expected that consumers would continue their strong spending during the week leading up to Christmas Day, but those expectations failed to materialize. As such, the growth rate for the holiday season through December 22nd stood at 10%. Even so, IBM reports a robust 16.5% increase in online sales on Christmas Day.

That’s a more encouraging result for e-commerce as a whole, but might not necessarily provide too much of a boost for desktop-based spending, as it was quite a mobile affair. IBM says that mobile accounted for 48% of all online traffic on Christmas Day, surpassing its share from Cyber Monday and Black Friday, and up 28.3% from last year. Mobile neared 29% of online sales on Christmas Day, a 40% increase from last year.

Continuing a pattern that indicates that smartphone are for browsing and tablets for purchasing, IBM indicates that smartphones drove more online traffic than tablets (28.5% vs. 18.1%), but only half as many sales (9.3% vs. 19.4%).

Despite the increase in Christmas Day sales, comScore doesn’t believe that it will factor among the 10 largest for desktops. As a result, the researcher listed its 10 heaviest sales days of the season, headed for the 4th consecutive year by Cyber Monday ($1.735 billion). The day after Cyber Monday ranked as the second-largest ($1.41 billion), ahead of Green Monday ($1.4 billion).

Other Findings:

  • Through December 22nd, comScore says that the top-gaining product categories on a year-over-year basis were: video game consoles and accessories; apparel and accessories; consumer electronics; computer hardware; and home and garden.
  • According to IBM, iOS devices accounted for 23% of online sales on Christmas Day, compared to just 4.6% for Android devices. On average, iOS users spent almost twice as much per order as Android users ($93.94 vs. $48.10).
  • Although traffic referred from Pinterest had a higher average order value than traffic from Facebook ($86.83 vs. $72.01) on Christmas Day, Facebook referrals converted at almost 4 times the rate as Pinterest referrals.
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