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Online eCommerce Sites Enjoy Record Week in First Full Week of 200 Holiday Shopping Season.Neilsen Net Ratings has Released online shopping statistics from the opening week of the 2005 holiday shopping season.

All indications are that the 2005 holiday season will set new all-time records for online shopping and internet orders.

We'll get to Neilsen numbers in a moment.

First let us reiterate the importance of using all points of off-line contact information on all of your online materials.

In other words, use all of your contact information on your ecommerce pages.
Telephone numbers, mailing addresses, hours of operation, primary email contacts all should easily found on your ecommerce pages.

Now more than ever users are placing phone calls into sellers operations prior to ordering online. For sevral very important reasons:

Make Sure Inventory is in stock
Delivery schedule
Shipping policies
Return policies

And most importantly, to verify that your company is real, accessible, and that a customer service representative is available by phone to work with new online orders/customers.

These early 2005 online shopping Holiday sales numbers are very strong yet also keep in mind they are not an accurate representation of the full impact that websites are making on total sales. These numbers are just the online order numbers, strictly those orders that were placed online, these numbers do not reflect the full volume of orders both online and offline that ecommerce websites are delivering.

Some recent studies suggest that at least 40% of total orders generated by websites are not credited to the website. Peak Positions recommends using specific 800#'s by media and using custom 800#'s on the pages or your website. Cost per call campaigns also available but in many cases can lead to customer confuasion and brand frustration.

Here are the numbers:

According to Nielsen//NetRatings, the Holiday eShopping Index saw a 29 percent increase from home on the day after Thanksgiving, garnering a unique audience of 17.2 million across more than 100 representative online retailers compared with 13.3 million on the same day last year. The Web has become a vital component in many Americans' holiday shopping preparations, concludes the report.

Heather Dougherty, senior retail analyst, Nielsen//NetRatings, said "... while many shoppers headed out to the stores over the (Thanksgiving) weekend, the majority first turned to the Internet to check prices and product availability."

EBay was the top online retailer on the day after Thanksgiving, with 9.5 million unique visitors, followed by Amazon and Wal-Mart Stores, which drew 4.6 million and 3.4 million unique visitors, respectively. These same retailers led the top online shopping destinations last year on the same day and were joined this year by Circuitcity.com, Dell, and Shopzilla.com Network in the top 10.

Nielsen//NetRatings Top Online Shopping Destinations, November 25, 2005

Nielsen//NetRatings Holiday eShopping Index, November 2005

Online Shopping orders 11/18/05-11/25/05.
Top 10 - ecommerce sites by volume

1. eBay
2. Amazon
3. Wal-Mart Stores
4. Target
5. BestBuy.com
6. Overstock.com
7. Circuitcity.com
8. Dell (a Peak Positions Organic SEO Clent since 2001)
9. Shopping.com Network
10. Shopzilla.com Network

Now By Category
Nielsen//NetRatings Daily Overnight Analysis, November 2005

The fastest growing retail category on the day after Thanksgiving was toys/video games, with a 152 percent week-over-week growth. Consumer electronics followed close behind, and computer hardware/software rounded out the top three.

Top selling products:

Xbox 360
portable game consoles
flat-screen TV's
iPods
MP3 players

Top Growth Categories:

Toys/Video Games
Consumer Electronics
Computer Hardware/Software
Apparel
Flowers and Gifts
Home and Garden
Shopping Comparison/Portals
Jewelry
Retail
Books/Music/Video

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