Holiday Sales Sucked

Online retail sales declined this holiday season for the first time since 2001, though some merchants, including Macy’s Inc., did see an increase in visitors. basically people are going into stores looking around, admiring the merchandise and then walking out. Money is tight so turnover in stores from prospect to sale is low.
Total orders from Nov. 1 to Dec. 23 slipped to $25.5 billion, down from $26.3 billion in the same period last year, according to ComScore, which measures online activity. From Oct. 1 to Dec. 28, sales declined by 4 percent, to $36.8 billion from $38.4 billion a year ago.
This makes for the worst showing since ComScore began tracking holiday online sales, in 2001.
“The combination of having five fewer shopping days between Thanksgiving and Christmas and the severe economic headwinds faced by consumers has made this a really tough season for retailers, both offline and online,” ComScore Chairman Gian Fulgoni said in a press release.
Among the online sites that saw the biggest increase in unique visitors were Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) and Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN), with 19 percent and 7 percent gains, to 35 million and 76 million, respectively. Hewlett Packard Co. (NYSE: HPQ) saw a 28 percent increase in visitors, to 19.4 million from 15.2 million.
But the greatest total number of visitors flocked to eBay (NASDAQ: EBAY), which saw 85.4 million, an actual decline of 4 percent from the year-ago figure of 88.9 million.
Meanwhile, Cincinnati-based Macy’s (NYSE: M) saw a 1 percent gain in online visitors, to 15.9 million from 15.7 million. Rivals J.C. Penney (NYSE: JCP) and Target Corp. (NYSE: TGT) both saw declines, of 11 percent and 1 percent.
Consumers are scared, plain and simple. The days of extravagance and frivolous spending are gone. The savvy consumer of 2009 will only buy what is absolutely necessary and will leave all the rest on the shelves. If retailers want to succeed in this market, appeal to the shopper's needs instead of wants. In fact if this very logic had been applied to the housing and mortgage markets we would not be in this terrible mess of an economy.