A growing number of US shoppers are voting with their keyboards. The latest insider figures show that more people than ever are realizing the benefits of the ‘consumer click’, with online buying in the US up 35% last year compared to 2009.
Retail Decisions (ReD), a world leader in card fraud prevention, has revealed that an estimated $210 billion was spent over the last year – beating all previous records for online spending.
ReD’s figures, which are based on real-time sales from leading retailers in the US, show that the total number of transactions made online in 2010 is estimated to have reached a remarkable 1.3 billion – compared with 1 billion transactions last year.
Carl Clump, CEO of Retail Decisions, commented: “Last year was an excellent one for online retailers based in the US. Despite a tough economic climate, online transactions went up a significant 30 percent during the year as Americans turned to the internet to find some of the best deals around.”
But while it may come as little surprise that more shopping than ever is now being done online in the US, ReD’s figures show one aspect which has interestingly not risen – the average amount spent in each sale.
ReD’s statistics over the past year have revealed a plateau in the average transaction value. So although Americans may now be click-buying more than ever before, the average individual e-spend has not risen. This could indicate that it is a growing number of bargain-hunters, rather than big-spenders, who are pushing the market.
“The average ticket price for online purchases in the US remained the same in 2010 as it was the previous year, at $164,” says Carl Clump. “Our statistics show that this is likely to be attributed to the increasingly competitive sales and deals offered by e-tailers, which are driving more transactions at a lower value.”
These savvy-shoppers were particular busy over the festive season….
As predicted, Black Friday, on November 26th, was the busiest day of the year for online shopping, with consumers across the United States eager to snap up bargains. According to ReD, the total value of online sales on Black Friday jumped a huge 39% compared to 2009, with $4.2 billion spent in just one day.
‘Brunch-buying’ was particularly popular. The peak of activity occurred between 11am and noon on that day, with an estimated 1.71 million online transactions accounting for purchases worth $296 million.
Interestingly, Black Friday’s average ticket price of $166 was 6% down on 2009’s figure of $177. This is another indication that the goliath online retailers are gradually changing America’s shopping patterns. By introducing early pre-Christmas offers, they avoided the less welcome festive tradition of ‘Black Friday sales bottlenecks’. Click-shoppers were canny – and the cash tills rang for internet sellers.
Sadly, the criminals were also keeping busy…
As the number and value of online sales soared in 2010, ReD’s data reveals that the frequency of attempted online payment fraud also increased. ReD estimates that the number of fraud attempts has increased by 64% year-on-year to 16 million, compared with 9 million in 2009. That equates to a total value of $5.8 billion worth of attempted fraudulent purchases during the year, up a significant 157% on last year’s total of $2.3 billion.
This suggests each fraudster’s average spend per transaction has also increased quite dramatically – from $242 in 2009, to $364 in 2010 – as they continue to take advantage of exposed retailers and consumers.
Source: www.redplc.com
