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Information Technology News US sees massive surge in online shopping
Information Technology News US sees massive surge in online shopping | US sees massive surge in online shopping |
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| by Stuart Corner | |
| Monday, 26 November 2007 | |
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"It's clear that consumers are increasingly turning to the Internet to make their holiday purchases," said comScore chairman Gian Fulgoni. "Based on the growth rates we've seen so far this season and historical consumer behaviour patterns, we would expect Cyber Monday sales be even stronger than Black Friday's and to exceed $US700 million. The bad news is that many of these purchases will be made by employees while at work and it has been estimated that the cost to employers will not be far short of the total retail spend. Job placement consulting firm, Challenger, Gray & Christmas of Chicago, has estimated that employers could lose a total of $US488 million in productivity. The estimate is based on the assumption that 68.6 million US. employees, or about half of the workforce, will spend an average of 12 minutes using their Internet connections at work to surf the Web to buy holiday gifts. According to ComScore the hottest category continues to be video games, consoles and accessories, up 134 percent on last year. The furniture, appliances & equipment category was up 36 percent, consumer electronics up 21 percent) and sport & fitness up 20 percent. However, online sales of toys were up only nine percent for the season-to-date, with toy safety concerns appearing to be weighing down the category in the wake of a number of recently highly publicised product recalls.{moscomment}
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