retail

Online retail spending in October grew by only 1 percent compared to October 2007, representing the lowest monthly growth rate since 2001, according to a report from comScore who began tracking ecommerce seven years ago.The report said that the softness in online retail spending was due in part by negative spending growth in households earning less than $50,000 a year.

Common sense says that online retailers are in a better position than their brick and mortar counterparts; consumers will be able save time, gas, and possibly the money that would go towards sales taxes by just shopping from home this season.  Still, according to a new Hitwise report, the winter is shaping up to be pretty harsh.

Yesterday, we covered three bills in Congress championed by the National Retail Federation that would require online marketplaces to keep extensive records on merchants and, on behalf of the government, secretly investigate those suspected of selling stolen goods. Trying to shore up support, a representative for the NRF compared online merchants to drug addicts who could help but steal to support their eBay habit.

The Internet plays an increasingly essential role in retail for brick and mortar retailers, even for purchases made in-store according to a new survey from Nielsen Online.People who had recently made consumer electronics purchases in a brick and mortar store, 80 percent bought from a store whose Web site they visited first. In addition 53 percent purchased from a retailer on whose Web site they had spent the most time.

Online retail sales will continue to see solid growth with retail sales increasing 17 percent this year to $204 billion according to a Shop.org study conducted by Forrester Research.Apparel ($26.6 billion), computers ($23.9 billion), and autos ($19.3 billion) will be the largest three sales categories."From higher shipping costs to changes in consumer shopping habits, online retailers are not immune to the current economic climate," said Scott Silverman, executive director of Shop.org.

Universal search presents retailers an opportunity to reach searchers with more information than a few words of plain text.

Any interesting report is out today from Chase Paymentech, saying that the online holiday retail sales for 2007 grew by a whopping twenty nine percent.

Today's a fun one for retail research. First, I received an update from Compete's blog deconstructing the myth of Cyber Monday: