Beauty Industry

Cyber Monday Sales Surge 15%

Online purchases increase to $846 million.

December 3, 2008

Editor-in-Chief

Things may be looking up for Holiday 2008. According to comScore Inc., Cyber Monday sales jumped 15% over last year, well ahead of most predictions. Online purchases increased to $846 million, according to industry estimates.

Internet revenues had declined 2% earlier in the holiday period, even though transactions continued to grow. But from Black Friday through Cyber Monday, e-commerce sales rose 13% comScore said.

“Mark Twain might have said: ‘Rumors of the death of online holiday shopping have been greatly exaggerated’,” said comScore chairman Gian Fulgoni “Consumers are clearly responding positively to retailers’ aggressive online discounts. 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, and culminating in a Cyber Monday that racked up an impressive $846 million in online spending, ranking it as the second heaviest online spending day on record. This is an extremely encouraging development for retailers and we can but hope that their aggressive discounting has still left room for profits.”

According to comScore surveys, more than half (51%) of consumers indicated that the level of promotions and discounts is higher this year than last year, while only 12% said that there appeared to be fewer, suggesting that retailers are having to be more aggressive in discounting to spur consumer spending. In addition, 39% of consumers said that there seemed to be fewer people out shopping in retail stores this year than last year, while only 7% thought there were more.

More info: www.comscore.com