Extended shipping deadlines double-digit sales growth this E-tail Holiday Season

[mandy]

...the number of retailers who guarantee that standard shipping orders placed by Dec. 18 or 19 will be delivered by Christmas Day (39 percent) nearly doubled from last year (19 percent), despite there being one less business day to ship merchandise this year due to Christmas falling on a Monday rather than a Sunday.

Approximately one-third (32 percent) of retailers' standard shipping deadline is Dec. 15, 16 or 17 and almost a quarter (23 percent) is Dec. 14 or earlier. A small group of online businesses (6 percent) is pushing the envelope, saying that their magic day for final standard shipping orders to be placed will be Dec. 20 or later.

and

As expected, online retailers are seeing big gains this holiday season. One-fourth of online retailers said their holiday sales are at least 50 percent higher than last year at this time. Another one-fourth of retailers said that holiday sales have grown between 25 and 49 percent over last year. In addition, 68 percent of online retailers said that the average order value has increased over last year and 85 percent found that their site traffic has increased over last holiday season...

full article: http://www.ecommerce-guide.com/news/news...hp/3647791