Online Sales Surge During a Lukewarm ’07 Holiday Shopping Season

While holiday-season shopping activity overall for 2007 may have seen only a lukewarm increase compared to last year, purchases online surged ahead, reaching their peak a week before Christmas. On Dec. 18, online sales for 10 of the 30 largest e-commerce merchants hit $169 million on more than 3 million transactions, reports the Chase Paymentech Pulse Index, a tracking service of processor Chase Paymentech Solutions LLC. That peak is more than 42% higher than the high point of the 2006 season, reached on Dec. 15. From Nov. 5 through Friday, online consumers had spent $4.7 billion on 91 million transactions at the merchants tracked by the Index. Sucharita Mulpuru, principal analyst at Forrester Research, credits the high seven days before Christmas to consumers' awareness of shipping timelines. But she cautions much depends on online merchants' ability to deliver the goods on time. “So long as the online retail industry works hard to deliver on expectations, it should be a good year and bode well for next season,” she said in a statement released by the Chase Paymentech Pulse Index. “We know that last year, a significant portion of consumers received packages later than expected. The problem will be if anyone has over-promised and subsequently under-delivers, which happens all too often.” MasterCard Advisors LLC, a consulting and research unit of MasterCard Worldwide, reported on Wednesday that online sales grew a robust 22.4% between the day after Thanksgiving, traditionally known as Black Friday, and Christmas Eve, compared to the same period last year. Dec. 13 was the peak day, according to this tracking service. E-commerce proved to be an exceptional generator of seasonal sales for merchants. Overall, sales for the season advanced only 3.6% compared to the 2006 season, a rate of increase that falls at the lower end of the expected range, according to the service, which blames severe weather and high gas prices for the modest results.