Holiday Ecommerce Sales Off to a Great Start

Allison Howen — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 14:54:00 GMT

The holiday season is off to a great start in the ecommerce world, with a 14 percent rise in sales during the first 20 days of November compared to the same time last year.

A recent comScore report reveals that the beginning of the holiday season, which started on November 1st, has already brought in $9.7 billion in online sales. So far, November 16th has proven to be the most successful day of the season, which brought in $688 million alone.

“The 2011 online holiday shopping season has shown strength in the early going with a year-over-year growth rate of 14 percent,” says comScore chairman, Gian Fulgoni. “With the persistent backdrop of macroeconomic uncertainty and continued high unemployment, consumers appear to be increasingly favoring the online benefits of convenience and lower prices. Based on the expectation that these positive spending trends will continue for the season, this year promises to be a Merry Christmas indeed for online retailers.”

And although comScore has forecasted 2011 ecommerce sales in November and December to increase 15 percent from last year and reach $37.6 billion, merchants may want to prominently feature free shipping promotions on their sites. According to consumers that took a recent comScore survey, free shipping is so important that 46 percent of participants claim that they actively seek out free shipping deals, and 30 percent claim they won’t make an online purchase without it.

Rec.fm Makes Online Shopping Charitable

Pete Prestipino — Fri, 26 Nov 2010 14:43:00 GMT

New fundraising platform Rec.fm announced a special holiday promotion that doubles the amount of money consumers can earn for their favorite charities.

Rec.fm normally gives 51% of its site earnings to charity, but now through December 31st, 100% of revenue generated by Rec.fm will go to its non-profit partners which include the American Red Cross, Water.org, the American Foundation for Children with AIDS, Kiva and the National Foundation for Cancer Research.

Rec.fm surfaces a new source of revenue for charitable organizations: product recommendations. Rec.fm users recommend products on behalf of a charity of their choice and share those recommendations on Facebook, Twitter and other social networks. When recommended products are purchased, a significant portion of the proceeds go to the selected non-profit or charity.

“Social network users alone spend over $150 billion annually in online purchases.” said Rec.fm President, John Appler, “Technology now makes it easy to contribute a significant portion of that spend to charity. Rec.fm is offering 100% of our revenue this season to get consumers into the habit of 'voting with their MasterCard' to help great causes as they shop.”

E-Commerce Express : shopping

Holiday Ecommerce Sales Off to a Great Start

Rec.fm Makes Online Shopping Charitable