Consumers looking to snag online deals

12.04.08
By Lewis Green

Christmas is fast upon us and gifts need to be bought. In spite of the economic turbulence besieging financial markets around the globe, pocketbooks will inevitably be opened, credit cards swiped and - when chance arises - deals snagged.

That's one of the conclusions flowing from the latest study of Americans' retail behavior over the recent Thanksgiving weekend.

But perhaps the most interesting thing in this year's shopping habits is the marked move toward online sales.

According to research carried out by market research firm comScore, American consumers were not slow in coming forward at the start of this week - widely known as Cyber Monday - by happily clicking their way toward $846 million of online spending, up 15 percent on the previous year.

The movement online appears borne out by the observations of shoppers themselves schlepping around the mall with bags in hand.

Nearly four out of every ten respondents reported seeing fewer people visiting stores compared with the previous year - at least that was their impression.

Good deals were apparently on offer across the board as retailers drove hard to engage consumers perhaps thinking twice about splashing out on big ticket items as news of the economic downturn starts to hit home.

Indeed, about half of shoppers believed there to be greater discounting in evidence compared with the same weekend in 2007.

"Consumers are clearly responding positively to retailers' aggressive online discounts," said comScore chairman Gian Fulgoni.

"With Cyber Monday promotions beginning in earnest over the Thanksgiving weekend, consumers have finally begun to open their wallets, setting off a streak of four consecutive days of extremely strong growth."

"This is an extremely encouraging development for retailers and we can but hope that their aggressive discounting has still left room for profits," he added.

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