Brutal Year For E-Commerce, Online Holiday Sales Up Only 3.5%

There had been a great deal of hope among online retailers that 2009 would be a substantial improvement over 2008, a year in which e-commerce revenue growth was the worst it has been since measurements began.

Online websites should be taking more market share from bricks-and-mortar stores as more people become comfortable with shopping online. Large snow storms that kept shoppers off the roads should also have bumped e-commerce sales. But, it did not work out that way. comScore, the leading researcher of online commercial activity, reports that internet retail was up only 5% this holiday season to $27.1 billion. Once the figures are adjusted for the number of shopping days last year and this, the improvement was only 3.5%.

Sales of consumer electronics rose 20% from November 1 to December 24, which means that the sales of almost every other category of goods and services dropped during the period.

Happy New Year.

Douglas A. McIntyre