Wednesday, December 03, 2008

Recession? Cyber Monday Sales Up +15% vs. 2007

Report 1: Despite the economic turmoil, it looks like more people than ever spent the first workday of the holiday season doing something other than work on their computers. Online shoppers spent $846 million in the U.S. on 'Cyber Monday,' according to new comScore Networks data. That was a 15% increase over the same day last year (see chart above).

Report 2: Earlier this week, comScore said that rate of growth for Cyber Monday sales have traditionally indicated the overall rate of growth for holiday spending in general. If that remains the case this year, that's good news.

HT: Ben Cunningham of Taxing Tennessee Blog

10 Comments:

At 12/03/2008 11:18 AM, Blogger RebelRenegade said...

I've been waiting for this data. I remain cautiously optimistic.

Also some semi-good news from MasterCard's SpendingPulse data as well.


Reuters

Luxury retailer sales being up seems counter to some of the conventional wisdom about people trading down in a poor economy.

The full ShopperPulse data is supposed to be out today.

 
At 12/03/2008 11:42 AM, Blogger Tom said...

I guess shoppers had more time on Monday - either unemployed or bored at work because things are so slow.

The more important number is Nov through Dec sales - down two percent from last year. What would be that number without the deep discounts?

 
At 12/03/2008 12:25 PM, Blogger OBloodyHell said...

> I guess shoppers had more time on Monday - either unemployed or bored at work because things are so slow.

Yes, because the first thing *I* do when I'm unemployed or expecting the possibility of becoming unemployed is to go out and spend lots and lots of money.

Mmmmhmmm.

"That's logic!" he says.

 
At 12/03/2008 12:59 PM, Blogger RebelRenegade said...

Not so good news after all.

WSJ SpendingPulse November data

Down 20% from last year.

 
At 12/03/2008 1:36 PM, Blogger juandos said...

Hmmm, "The data suggest that when retailers report their November sales Thursday, some chains could post double-digit drops for the four weeks "...

How often have these forecasts been wrong?

From 2007: In some ways, a weaker season is already in the cards. Once economic forecasts were revised downward in late August, big chains started canceling orders and trimming unsold fall inventory faster. Container traffic into the nine biggest U.S. ports from Asia is running behind 2006 levels for the past three months...

From 2006: Retail sales surged in the last days before Christmas but not as much as expected, two reports confirmed Wednesday, putting more pressure on stores to get shoppers to open their wallets in the final days of December.

Does anyone remember the retailers after the Xmas shopping season was over really do a lot of complaining when it was all said and done?

I don't...

 
At 12/03/2008 2:39 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

From The Big Picture:


A few things you can count on every year around this time:

Sales data for Black Friday will be touted by biased interest groups. They are invariably have an upside bias;
Headline writers will get it wrong
Survey data will be taken as the equivalent of actual sales;
Strong forecasts will be subsequently proven wrong;
Such is the current situation with the Black Friday sales data, with reports still trickling in from around the country.

 
At 12/03/2008 3:50 PM, Blogger Tom said...

Hey, OBloodyHell

>I guess shoppers had more time on Monday - either unemployed or bored at work because things are so slow.

It's called sarcasm ... kinda like your username.

 
At 12/03/2008 5:11 PM, Blogger MikeJ said...

This comment has been removed by the author.

 
At 12/05/2008 12:39 AM, Blogger OBloodyHell said...

> It's called sarcasm ... kinda like your username.

Sorry, then... the problem is, there are some idiots around here who would say what you said seriously.

;-)

 
At 12/08/2008 10:24 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

A one-day anomaly blip due to unusually low one-day pricing that received considerable hype. That day's sales are probably ones that would have occurred in subsequent days, but now won't, as a result.

Ergo, event indicates nothing.

 

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