This is too painful to hear. Hitwise is reporting that “U.S. visits to online retail Web sites have declined for the eighth consecutive week”. According to the report, US visits to a “custom category of 500 retail websites declined 3 percent for the week ending Oct. 25, 2008, compared with the same week the previous year”.
“These declines have strong implications for the upcoming holiday season as well as offline sales,” said Heather Dougherty, research director at Hitwise. “Everyone is aware of the role that the Internet plays to influence offline sales through research, so this slowdown may indicate a further ripple effect in sales in retail locations.”
Definitely not good for retailers’ Q4 aspirations. As demand shrinks, retailers will have to outspend each other on customer acquisition, which will cut into their margins, which will ultimately cause the biggest Christmas Party budget cuts for the people they rely on for outsourced help (me). Great.
Here’s the full report.
October 30th, 2008 at 7:57 pm
same thing i experienced on wholesale ecommerce websites
November 6th, 2008 at 11:08 pm
it’s true that whenever the demand shrinks, retailers outspend each other on customer acquisition.
November 7th, 2008 at 1:55 pm
Thats the difficult the acquisition of the customer is always on the retailers,and its wasting a time coz they have to spend the time to each other.
November 11th, 2008 at 8:09 am
so i guess that’s life,the’y have to face all consequences.
November 15th, 2008 at 4:02 am
@deinse: yeah, absolutely agree with you
November 19th, 2008 at 9:12 am
Its really painful to hear custom category of 500 retail websites declined 3 percent for the week,compared with the same week the previous year.What happen?
December 16th, 2008 at 2:57 pm
It’s all because of the U.S. and European recession. Cyclicals such as retail and real estate will really suffer in terms of demand… Even here in the Philippines there is a slowdown in Real Estate buying, but of course it’s not as bad as the US. We’re still experiencing growth, but not as high as last year. Hopefully, the analysts would be right in saying that Asia won’t as hard hit as the US and Europe…
December 16th, 2008 at 2:59 pm
And in terms of Philippine real estate, I think population growth will still be the major growth driver here. Maybe because of cost cutting, more US and European companies will avail of BPO services here! I certainly hope that would be the case…
March 6th, 2009 at 9:01 am
This is another effect of the global recession. Slow demand means slow sales and definitely mean lower costs and lower revenues for bloggers.
November 28th, 2009 at 11:50 am
I read your blog on occasion and I must mention that I like your template!