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Technology Stocks : CyberShop International, Inc. (CYSP) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Y-fall who wrote (601)	12/17/1998 8:11:00 AM
From: AugustWest	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 884

Wednesday December 16, 8:17 pm Eastern Time Online shopping in U.S. surges during holidays By Gregory Crawford CHICAGO, Dec 16 (Reuters) - Online shopping in the United States was forecast to grow by leaps and bounds this holiday season, and early indications suggest the growth in Internet retailing is meeting those expectations, keeping investors hot on the trail of Internet-related stocks. On Wednesday, America Online Inc. (NYSE:AOL - news), the world's largest online service, said holiday visits to its shopping channel surged 350 percent over last year, with 750,000 members moving from shopping to buying online for the first time. In addition, members are buying more often and spending 48 percent more on each purchase, for an average of $54 an item, the Dulles, Va., company said in a statement. The news helped drive AOL shares sharply higher on the New York Stock Exchange, where they rose $3.44 to $96.19 in heavy afternoon trading. It was the most active stock on the Big Board, with turnover topping 11 million shares. Among other Internet retailers, Amazon.com Inc. (Nasdaq:AMZN - news) surged $46.25 to $289 after an analyst at CIBC Oppenheimer raised his price target to $400 from $150. Books-A-Million Inc. (Nasdaq:BAMM - news), which said it planned to buy privately-held Internet services company NetCentral Inc., gained $8.06 to $18.125. Elsewhere in the group, Egghead.com Inc. (Nasdaq:EGGS - news) rose $1.06 to $20.50, ONSALE Inc. (Nasdaq:ONSL - news) gained $2.875 to $40.375 and CyberShop International Inc. (Nasdaq:CYSP - news) rose $1.25 to $16.94. Cybershop said Wednesday it would sell its electronic goods through ETrade Group's shopping center on the Internet. Research firm Jupiter Communications forecast that online shoppers will spend $2.3 billion during the holiday season this year, up from $1.1 billion last year. ''There's an enormous run-up in traffic going to shopping sites,'' said Bob Ivins, a senior vice president at Media Metrix, which has been tracking online shopping trends. A Media Metrix study released this week found that online shopping rose nearly 80 percent during the December 4-10 week compared to the previous week. The study found that department store Web sites had the biggest week-to-week increase, but traffic remained heavy at toy sites as well.* Books, music and movies and specialty clothing stores were also popular. ''Everyone we talk to is reporting record-breaking traffic,'' said Andy Sernovitz, who runs the Association for Interactive Media. ''What's interesting is that everyone we're talking to is reporting a record number of new customers -- people who never shopped online before this year are buying one or two items.'' He said defining how much Web site traffic translates into actual sales is nearly impossible. Richard Gordon, founder and chairman of the Electronic Commerce Association, characterized growth in Internet commerce as being like getting on a high-speed elevator and going from the first floor to the 30th floor in seconds. He compared it to the ''escalator fashion'' which is a slower, steady increase. ''December 1998 will mark in my opinion the first significant elevator event because we will see people become so much more familiar with this method'' of shopping, he said. biz.yahoo.com