Thanksgiving
Holiday E-Commerce Sales Flat Overall According to Latest comScore Data
With the economy in the pooper and 5 fewer holiday shopping days than last year, the latest data from comScore will show whether you’re a half glass full or half glass empty kind of person.
As the 2008 holiday shopping season draws to a close, online sales are trending flat for the year.
If you look at just Thanksgiving through December 19th, and remember, there were five fewer days in 2008, sales were up 5%. I’m half glass full, so I’m loving that number:
Cyber Monday wasn’t the top online shopping day of the year, either. It came in third:
Here’s our journey up to this point:
Holiday E-Commerce Update: Spending Flat Last Week (12/15/08)
Holiday E-Commerce Spending Up 7% Year-Over-Year Last Week (12/10/08)
Online Black Friday Sales Up 1% Over Last Year (12/1/08)
Preparing for the Worst: Bad Online Economic Data Just in Time for Black Friday (11/26/08)
links for 2008-11-30
Happy Thanksgiving, from All of Us at Search Engine Watch
999 money biz ops: 820-829
links for 2008-11-29
Why You Should Be Faxing Over the Internet
Happy Thanksgiving, from All of Us at Search Engine Watch
We will not be publishing on Thursday, November 27, or Friday, November 28, in observation of Thanksgiving Day. I hope those of you that are celebrating the holiday can stay off the Internet and spend some time with those you love.
For those of you that aren’t celebrating Thanksgiving, or have had enough quality time with your family, here are a few things you might find interesting:
* If you haven’t checked it out lately, I suggest looking over the articles in our Search 101 section. It’s been updated with articles covering the basics of search engine optimization, search advertising, and several other topics. Keep an eye on that section, as it will continue to be updated on a regular basis.
* We’ve been collecting quite the archive of Search Engine Marketing Webcasts. We’ve got one-hour presentations with Q&A available on demand on topics from Holiday PPC campaigns to search trends, to Profitable PPC fundamentals. You can also sign up for upcoming webcasts, including one next week on Advanced Keyword Research.
* Catch up with other Thanksgiving refugees on the Search Engine Watch Forums, or browse the archives to find the best advice on a range of search marketing topics.
* Head on over to Facebook to join the SearchEngineWatch Facebook Group or the Search Engine Strategies Facebook Group. Or check out our LinkedIn Groups for Search Engine Watch, SearchEngineWatch.com Forums, or Search Engine Strategies Conference & Expo.
We’ll be back on Monday with plenty of new Experts columns, blog posts, and more. Have a happy Thanksgiving!
Preparing for the Worst: Bad Online Economic Data Just in Time for Black Friday
It’s the day before Thanksgiving, where you show up at the office, but you’re really thinking about tomorrow’s good meal. You’ve worked hard to set up those search marketing campaigns to run strong on Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
So, I really hate to bring you the bad news, but keeping it from you would be a disservice.
Let’s just rip off the bandaid.
First up, eMarketer has lowered its projections for online advertising spending for 2009. The new growth number is 8.9%, down from 14.5% projected in August. They’re also expecting a long recovery, projecting 2010 growth to be just 10.9%. In five years, things will still be slower on the uptake (than in recent years). Projections for 2013 growth are at 13.5%. Silver lining: some of the tapering off is likely due to market saturation and not just the economy.
Next, eBay’s traffic is declining. In January of 2007, eBay saw 62 million unique visitors. Last month, they saw just 49 million. Sure, not all of that was due to the economy, but dipping below 50 million can’t be good for eBay.
I saved the worst for last. comScore has released data showing that online consumer spending for the first 23 days of November was down 4% from last year. That’s not a slow down in growth people, that’s flat out shrinkage.
But I’m not a total Scrooge. Unemployment numbers were better than expected this week. And at least one Slate columnist explains why fears of another Great Depression could be overblown (let’s hope he’s right!).
As we overdose on turkey, stuffing and pumpkin pie, let us not forget the ultimate strategy for marketing, business and life in general: Hope for the best but prepare for the worst.
Related Reading:
Selling SEO During an Economic Downturn
E-commerce Growth Slows to Just 1% in October 2008
Online Advertising Networks Struggle As Industry Growth Slows
Christmas Gifts Ideas from Lycos Before Thanksgiving Day
Okay, I understand that we’re all trying to “give a jolt” to the economy. But I was still surprised today when Lycos provided a list of Christmas gift ideas two days before Thanksgiving Day. Aren’t we all supposed to wait until Black Friday?
Nevertheless, for shoppers who like planning ahead — or for online retailers and etailers looking for what will be hot this holiday season — Lycos just announced its ninth annual list of the most popular toys and video games, based on web search activity.
(For a complete list and commentary of the Lycos Top Toys and Video Games of 2008, go to the Lycos 50. You can also voice your opinion on this year’s list, and weigh in on weekly Internet trends and pop culture on the Lycos 50 Blog or follow the Lycos 50 on Twitter.)
It shouldn’t come as a shock that Apple’s iPod holds the top spot as the #1 most-searched for toy this holiday season. But this year, the Apple frenzy includes hot-searched items like the iTouch and iPod Nano.
Harry Potter, at #11, makes a fifth consecutive appearance in 2008, with Harry Potter games, books and DVDs dominating Harry Potter-themed searches.
New in 2008 is KOTA, the Triceratops Dinosaur (#15), generating more search interest than Fisher Price’s New Elmo Live (#19). Meanwhile, not so hot in 2008 are Hannah Montana-related toy items, which made a big splash in 2007, but fail to make this year’s list.
Spongebob Squarepants (#14) takes over as the top licensed character-themed toy of 2008. Spongebob was last seen on the Lycos Top Toy list in 2005. And when it comes to dolls, Barbie (#6) continues to reign, extending her run on the annual Lycos list of Top Toys and Video Games to nine consecutive years of appearing in the Top 10. But there’s not enough data on Caribou Barbie to see if that will be a big hit this year — let alone in 2012.
Gaming consoles see a big resurgence in search popularity in 2008, with the Nintendo Wii (#10) capturing the most search interest, generating 25% more search activity than the Xbox 360 (#12) and Playstation 3 (#13). Also seeing a resurgence in 2008 are old school classics like Monopoly (#17), despite the current housing market.
Five of the top 25 toys in 2008 originate from the popular world of anime including Naruto (#3), Pokemon (#4), Dragonball (#5), Inuyasha (#7) and Gundam (#16). Meanwhile, one new toy making the 2008 list may be unfamiliar to most adults, but if search activity is any indication, expect the Bakugan Battle Brawlers (#24) to be flying off the shelves this holiday season.
On the video game front, the massive multi-player game RuneScape (#1) scores big with web users for the fourth consecutive year as the most-searched video game of 2008, while Final Fantasy makes its first appearance on the list since 2005, with Final Fantasy XIII (#3). Also racking up points online, making first-ever appearances on the top video games list, are war-themed games including Call of Duty: World at War (#9) and Gears of War 2 (#14), while Guitar Hero World Tour (#8) and Wii Fit (#15) are the most popular Wii-themed games based on web searches in 2008.
Also new in 2008 are Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 games Fable 2 (#17), Fallout 3 (#18), Street Fighter IV (#10), Dead Space (#19), Far Cry 2 (#22) and BioShock (#25). This also marks the fourth consecutive year the Madden football-themed games fail to make Lycos’s Top Toys and Video Games list.
As for me, I don’t do any Christmas shopping until the very last minute. That way, I don’t have to figure where to hide presents where my three kids (or wife) can find them before December 24th. Yep, when I say “last minute Christmas shopping” I mean last minute shopping. You’d be surprised how simple decisions are on Christmas eve.
Online Job Ads Up In December
In December there were 3,541,200 online advertised job vacancies, an increase of 6 percent from last December, according to The Conference Board Help-Wanted Online Data Series.
While this number is up from last year, it was down by 13 percent from the November level, partly because of a seasonal pattern, which began with the Thanksgiving holiday. [...]
Green Monday Dreamed Up By eBay
Now that we are stuck with Cyber Monday as a designation for the first Monday after Thanksgiving, eBay has promoted the second Monday of December as Green Monday.It’s not another Yahoo story about the environment or Google putting up solar panels. The ‘Green Monday’ name dreamed up by eBay, PayPal, and Shopping.com reflects economic thoughts, [...]
Shoppers Spending More Time Researching Online
Online shoppers researched product information 11 percent and 27 percent more on Thanksgiving Day and Black Friday respectively than they did on Cyber Monday, according to research from WebCollage.
The average amount of time shoppers spent researching specific products online increased 16 percent when compared to the time they spent researching specific products in 2006.
"The increase [...]
Natural Search Traffic To Retailers Rises
Retailers have had higher growth rates for natural or unpaid search traffic, according to Netconcepts. The company looked at programs of retailers using GravityStream, its natural search-advertising platform, and found an average of 14 percent week-to-week growth, compared to nine percent at this time in 2006.
"This faster rate of growth likely stems from several root [...]
Facebook To Cry Uncle Over Beacon
Sources say Facebook is near to announcing changes to its Beacon marketing platform after pressure from privacy advocates over the last week. MoveOn launched its campaign the Monday before Thanksgiving and has since signed up 50,000 Facebook members incensed about having their online purchases and activities outside the social network published via News Feeds.
Initially, [...]
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