News

Holiday shoppers spending record amounts via technology

December 23, 2003

DENVER -- Holiday shoppers are clicking their way toward record online spending levels this year.

Internet shoppers will have spent $12.2 billion between Thanksgiving and Christmas, up from $8.4 billion last year, Forrester Research analysts estimate. The surge in online holiday sales will push total Internet spending beyond $100 billion, a fivefold increase since 1999, according to an article in the Denver Post.

About 4.5 percent of all holiday purchases will be made online this year. About 1.5 percent of all retail sales are made online, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce.

Technology-savvy consumers expect the Internet and e-mail to be a part of the overall shopping experience. These customers expect sale notices and coupons to land in their e-mail boxes and are adept at ordering specialty items from in-store kiosk terminals, which blur the lines between the physical and virtual shopping worlds.

One retailer, REI, uses kiosks as a tool for incremental purchases customers might make when picking up an Internet order. REI introduced in-store pickup of Internet purchases in July. Spokesman Mike Foley said about 36 percent of customers buy additional items when they come to get their purchases.

To accommodate visitors to its physical stores, REI put in kiosks where customers can place orders to pick up later. Now that those items ship for free, the service has generated a lot of business, Foley said in the article.