Santa is still shopping online and loving social media
Posted by Patrick Murphy on Tue, Dec 07, 2010
Santa is back and so is comScore, so far this year Santa has spent $16.8 billion online, this is a 12-percent increase against the corresponding days last year. The most recent week saw four individual days eclipse $800 million in spending, led by Cyber Monday, which became the heaviest online spending day on record at $1.028 billion.
Cyber Monday kicked off with an all-time record of more than $1 billion in e-commerce spending, representing a strong 16-percent growth rate versus year ago. This could be due to retailers’ heavy discounting and promotional activity during the earlier part of the holiday season, which pulled some consumer demand forward, resulting in a mild hangover effect in the days immediately following Cyber Monday.
So where is Santa spending his money?
One trend that has emerged since the beginning of the recession is the shift of online spending dollars towards larger retailers, who typically have greater financial resources to invest in offering the most competitive pricing on goods and services. In fact, growth for the holiday season to date has come almost entirely from the Top 25 online retailers, who have seen their total dollar sales grow 20 percent while overall growth among the small and mid-sized retailers has been flat. The top 25 retailers have gained 4.2 points of market share to a level of 67.8 percent since the 2009 holiday season.
But is social media helping Santa with his spending?
Approximately 500 Internet users were asked about the importance of social media sites influencing their purchase decisions. When asked how much they agreed with the statement “Recommendations from friends on social media sites are a great way to get gift ideas during the holiday season,” 33 percent agreed with the statement compared to 24 percent who disagreed (while 43 percent remained neutral). This finding suggests that, while social media can certainly play a role in driving holiday shopping and purchase behavior, it may not be a primary driver for many consumers.
So there you have it Santa still loves shopping and social media