Bolstering the Christmas boasts issued by Amazon regarding the strength of its online retail business, the number crunchers at ShopperTrak have revealed last-minute purchasing ahead of December 25 was a more focused online experience.
Everyone is online instead of in line. Image: Biege Alert/Flickr.
Specifically, ShopperTrak’s latest National Retail Sales Estimate (NRSE) notes that online sales attached to ‘Super Saturday’ (December 19), which is the final Saturday before Christmas, leapt to $767 million USD in 2009 – a year-on-year improvement of some 13 percent.
Conversely, retails sales attributed to traditional bricks-and-mortar outlets plunged by 12.6 percent, while foot traffic through stores across the United States fell by around 12.4 percent.
Although the numbers certainly suggest an increased willingness to secure last-minute purchases through online stores, ShopperTrak co-founder Bill Martin has been keen to stress that severe weather in the Midwest and along the country’s East Coast has also played a contributing factor in keeping consumers off the street.
“Mother Nature was very unkind to retailers on Saturday as the year-over-year sales decline was the largest we’ve seen since we began reporting this number in 2002,” he said in an official statement.
In all, walk-in sales on December 19 accounted for approximately $6.9 billion USD, which, while clearly a huge number, is a significant shortfall when measured against the $7.9 billion USD registered in 2008, and the $8.7 billion USD amassed on the final Saturday ahead of Christmas in 2007.
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