This year may mark the first time since the inception of online shopping that retailers fail to see substantial growth in online gift purchases. Could this signal that the meltdown on Wall Street is starting to reverberate out into other industries?

Online research firm Comscore released a report detailing online holiday shopping sales for the year thus far. While the number don’t include the spike expected from this coming Cyber Monday, the report reflects retailers’ growing concerns about this year’s holiday shopping season.

Total online sales in the 2008 holiday shopping season are off by 4 percent as compared to the same period last year. While that is not a terribly large gap, last year actually saw a 19 percent increase over 2007.

The report focuses solely on online gift sales, but it will be interesting to see how the e-commerce sector fairs against the broader retail industry. If buyers continue to flock to the Internet for holiday shopping, brick and mortar shops could see substantially larger declines.

Comscore conducted a survey of holiday shoppers to see hoe they plan to trim costs from their holiday shopping budgets. Respondents indicated that they are planning to buy fewer and less expensive gifts than last year.

Shoppers are also looking for free shipping from online retailers to help reduce the overall cost of online gifts. Many people are also spending more time researching deals to find the best price.

There are lots of great deals out there this holiday season, but you need to plan your holiday shopping trip to get them. Check out our list of Black Friday deal sites to find the right gifts for your loved ones at the right price.

The question still remains whether consumers are tightening their belts because of the economic outlook or whether they are already starting feel the pinch. Are you planning to do more or less holiday shopping this year? Do you find yourself turning more to the Web for your gifts or less because of shipping costs?

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Entry was posted on Wednesday, November 26th, 2008 at 10:43 am under Retail, Technology.  Print This Post

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