E-tailers Buoyed by Holiday Spike

The traditional kickoff of the holiday shopping season on Friday fueled a 27 percent surge in online traffic from earlier in the week, according to data released Monday by Internet tracking firm Nielsen//NetRatings.

"Shoppers flocked to e-commerce sites the day after Thanksgiving, traditionally one of the busiest shopping days of the year for brick-and-mortar retailers," said NetRatings e-commerce vice president Sean Kaldor. "We're seeing the same trends on the Web."

In preparing the Holiday E-Commerce Index, researchers collected data from roughly 70,000 Internet users in the U.S. and measured traffic across a host of different product categories.

Not All Rosy for Amazon

E-tail bellwether Amazon.com played a significant part in Friday's online shopping spike.

"A surge was seen in every e-commerce category the day after Thanksgiving, but the biggest contributor to overall growth in sheer numbers were virtual department stores, led by Amazon.com," added Kaldor.

Kaldor noted that Amazon alone accounted for more than 1.3 million online users throughout the day, an increase of 36 percent compared to the rest of the week.

These figures could have been higher had the Seattle, Washington-based heavyweight not experienced a service outage Friday that prevented shoppers from making purchases for roughly 30 minutes. Company executives attributed the outage to an internal computer "glitch" and said there was no way to estimate the effect of the downtime on sales.

According to Amazon, more than 300,000 items were sold during the first eight hours of the day.

Clothing a Winner

Among the categories surveyed, Nielsen//NetRatings found that apparel was the hottest e-tail sector for the day, with an overall rise of 68 percent. Landsend.com had the most dramatic increases, skyrocketing 93 percent, followed by Gap.com and Speigel.com, both of which had an over 80 percent rise in traffic.

Consumer electronics also fared well, with sites in the category jumping 46 percent. CircuitCity.com led the charge, racking up a significant 126 percent increase, followed by Outpost.com and 800.com.

Brick-and-Clicks in Front

Multi-channel sites, or brick-and-clicks, also racked up impressive statistics on Friday, with traffic spiking 49 percent from earlier in the week. Pure-play e-tailers had a 26 percent increase.

Accordingly, a report released earlier this month by PC Data Online found that traditional retailers are becoming a major force online this year. The study found that half of the top 20 e-tailers it ranked had an established physical presence before opening a Web arm, possibly signifying that consumers have more confidence in stores they patronize in the real world than in stores with an Internet presence only.

This scenario stands in marked contrast to last year, when online retailing was seen as a threat to brick-and-mortars. "While the two have been battling back and forth throughout the holidays, no clear winner has yet emerged," said Kaldor.

E-tailers Seeing Double

While industry analysts expect online holiday sales to hit upwards of US$19 billion this year, the day after Thanksgiving is often seen as a barometer of the extent consumers will spend during the seasonal spurt. The day has been dubbed "Black Friday" because it is the day that retailers hope to turn red ink into black.

Yahoo! said transactions at its shopping sites doubled Friday compared to the same day last year, while Kmart's Bluelight.com reported a 50 to 60 percent increase in sales this past weekend over typical weekend sales.

In addition, AOL said consumers at its shopping hub, which includes Macys.com, Nordstrom.com, Sears.com and Target.com, spent more than one and a half times more this Thanksgiving week than last year at the same time.