Online retailers have great expectations for holiday traffic and sales

[mandy]

Despite recent record gas prices and a slowing economy, customers are still expected to open their cyber wallets, dig deeper and spend more time and money shopping online this holiday shopping season than they did last.

The fact that a growing number of consumers will be doing even more of their Christmas shopping online in 2006 has web retailers anticipating a strong holiday buying season, according to Internet Retailer’s latest survey—this one on holiday shopping expectations and preparations.

Each year retailers count on their online holiday sales to deliver big contributions to their overall annual financial performance: 9.5% of all retailers depend on the final months of the year to generate more than half of their yearly sales, according to the Internet Retailer survey. 31.6% report that the holidays account for between 30.1% and 50% of their total annual revenue, while 59% note that the holidays make up between 20.1% and 30% of total yearly sales...

full article: http://www.internetretailer.com/article.asp?id=20362