comScore Cancels Financial Crisis. At Least in E-Commerce.

So you still think we are all buried deep in the crisis and probably doomed? Think again as it looks like not all consumers are of this opinion and comScore has good news proving that the situation is not actually too bad. What’s more, the situation at least in one industry is at least as good as it was last year – and everything that is at least as good as last year is already a success.

The thing is that comScore has published the results of the e-commerce performance during the first 35 days of this holiday season (up to the 5^th of December) and compared these results to those of last year. The good thing is that they are actually more than comparable and it looks like consumers woke up on Cyber Monday and started buying heavily – which actually brought sales during the first days of December to the amount higher than it was during the same period of last year.

For the first weeks of this holiday season US consumers spent a total of $14.92 billion online which is essentially the same amount as recorded in 2007. But the beginning of December is surprisingly better than it was last year with consumers spending a total of $3.74 during the first five days of the month – which is 9% higher than the last year’s figure.

It looks like it is mainly the Cyber Monday effect with two days of the past week recording sales amounts over $800 million: consumers spent a total of $846 million on Monday and only slightly less – $823 million – on Tuesday. People buy more and more of sports and fitness products (up 35% during the first December days) and the usual consumer electronics (up 24% probably thanks to unbelievable discounts on many items). But it is visible that the trend of buying things that can be characterized as useful is here with consumers buying considerably less luxury items: jewelry and watches category dropped by 22% during the same period.

So yes, the crisis is here and it shows in the types of products people choose but at least consumers are not entirely discouraged to buy things – they just hunt for bargains and don’t think about luxury this year as much as they did in better financial situation of the previous years. But what’s important is that people are still willing to buy as I believe we have finally been persuaded by the attractive discounts that we still need to buy gifts and doing it right now is a good idea as you can save substantially when buying. And of course Thanksgiving made us realize that the holidays are already here and they won’t be cancelled by the poor global financial environment anyway.

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