Hi Barry, Article...Internet shopping sales explode this holiday season
December 23, 1997
SILVER SPRING, Md., Dec. 22 /PRNewswire/ via Individual Inc. -- For the first 17 days of holiday spending, stores have experienced, at best, a few percentage sales growth over last year, with the nationwide average only being 0.3% (Survey of 27,000 stores by Telecheck Services). During that same period, leading Internet retailers had been seeing their sales take off like a rocket confirmed shop.org ( shop.org ), a newly-formed industry association for Internet retailers.
Many leading Internet retailers are reporting November '97 sales growth in double digits, and some even exceeding by 500%, from what was registered in November '96. And the traditional Friday after Thanksgiving shopping surge was an explosion online as a growing number of consumers preferred to avoid crowds and shop from the convenience of their home.
For example at Garden Escape, sales for the three days after Thanksgiving grew by an amazing 3,500% over the same period as last year. Commenting on these sales results, Cliff Sharples, President of Garden Escape and Chairman of shop.org explained, "For an Internet-only retailer like Garden Escape, these kind of growth numbers are particularly compelling. I believe that consumer perception has finally caught up with the reality that shopping over the Internet, when using quality sites, is secure."
And in an entirely different product area, men-and-women's fashion, explosive weekend online sales were also reported. Fashionmall.com saw their sales orders jump 83% as compared to the steady sales order volume for the beginning of the same week.
Overall online sales in '97 are projected by industry analyst Jupiter Communications to nearly triple as compared with the '96 results, from $706 billion to $2.6 billion. Such projected rapid growth is represented by ONSALE, the leading electronic retailer of interactive online auctions, which saw its 3rd quarter (September 30) '96 gross merchandise sales of $9.2 million accelerate to $32.3 million for that same quarter in '97.
"1997 has shown tremendous growth for consumer acceptance and adoption of online transactions," says Robert L. Smith, Jr., President of shop.org. "We expect 1998 to be a watershed year for consumer online commerce. As an association service to our members, shop.org has begun to poll and track our members online sales activities. By this time next year we will have actual, quarterly industry results to accurately compare '97 and '98 online sales. "
Shop.org was formed last month as an association dedicated to serving the needs of Internet retailers. shop.org was founded by twelve leading Internet retailers: 1-800-Flowers, CDnow, CyberShop, Eddie Bauer, Fashionmall.com, Garden Escape, GolfWeb, Greet Street, iVillage, ONSALE, Sony Online Ventures and Virtual Vineyards. The sites of each of these leading retailers can be accessed through www.shop.org.
Elaine Rubin, Commerce Strategist for iVillage and a director on the Board of shop.org, noted, "Many of us have been riding the online tides for years, waiting for commerce to truly begin to happen in large scale numbers. It is exciting to get this association off the ground in midst of all this advancement in online commerce."
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I have to admit to causing a small bit of this trend :-)
Barry, you probably just have a temporary glitch in your browser. Have you tried rebooting you computer, sometimes that works.
I don't use Netscape but I did download their newest browser free the other day on their web site. Maybe it's time to upgrade to 4.0
I still think Explorer 4.0 is better though. I love the way it allows full screen viewing with a hidden taskbar. I'm sure Netscape will add this feature in their next version.
Good Luck, Michael
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