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Consumers say holiday budgets are tight, 85 percent will shop online
October 8, 2009
Eighty-five percent of consumers plan to shop online and 69 percent plan to make an online holiday purchase, based on results of a new survey from Burst. Consumers also say they will use the Internet to shop around, with 57 percent of consumers planning to compare different retailers to find the best price and 55 percent planning to use the Web to compare brands' features.
According to Internet Retailer, the survey also found that more than 27 percent of consumers who made an online purchase a year ago plan to increase their online spending this year. Nearly 15 percent will decrease online spending. For those who didn't make an online purchase last year, roughly 33 percent plan to do so this year.
The National Retail Federation's 2009 holiday forecast projects retail industry sales to drop 1 percent to $437.6 billion. For the year, the NRF expects online retail sales to account for 5 percent of total retail sales, or $156.1 billion, up from $141.3 billion a year ago.
Internet Retailer says that, although the National Retail Federation's forecast falls below the 10-year average of 3.4 percent holiday growth, the decline is not likely to be as dramatic as last year's 3.4-percent drop in holiday retail sales. It was the first year NRF has reported a decline since it began tracking retail industry sales in 1992.
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