US Holiday E-Commerce Spend Up 4% Year Over Year

The numbers are in according to one tracking firm, comScore, which tell us just how good, bad or indifferent this past holiday season was from an online perspective. With a 4 % increase over last year I wouldn’t say good or bad and maybe not even indifferent. How about we’ll just take it because let’s face it, the economy still sucks.

The data covers the entire November through December time frame. There were some contributing factors that lent to the overall numbers being in the black. Here are some comScore observations.

“The 2009 online holiday shopping season was a positive one as its growth rate slightly surpassed our forecast and returned to solidly positive rates after nearly a full year of marginally negative growth,” said comScore chairman Gian Fulgoni. “Among the highlights of the season was the first $900 million online spending day and a strong late season spending surge, propelled by effective retailer promotions, guaranteed shipping and a major snowstorm on the eastern seaboard that convinced many to shop from the comfort of home. It’s possible that this better-than-expected end-of-year performance is a harbinger of renewed vigor and optimism for 2010 as the consumer economy seeks to rebound from one of the worst years in memory. At the same time, we need to remember that consumers’ spending power remains constrained by high unemployment levels, substantial debt and a new-found desire to save.”

Drat that new-found desire to save! Wonder if the government is catching on yet but I digress. The chart below shows just how consumers were willing to wait longer to make their purchases. That may be attributed to waiting to see if any deals would show up or just that people waited to make sure they could afford to actually buy things.

There were a few categories that made significant gains over last year’s really crappy results. Here’s a ‘look see’ at some of the top performers.

At this point in time I think anyone will breathe at least a small sigh of relief when any shopping numbers have a plus sign in front of them these days? What do you think?

Study Shows That People Act Differently Online ……… Really ?!?!?!

OK, so this kind of information is not going to set anyone on their ear this morning, I get that. I also get that the online marketing community and the tech world in general is in hibernation coming off BlackCyberFridayMonday. So for a little diversion let’s start the debate as to just how functional or dysfunctional social media types are as a result of their new found ability to ‘communicate’ with others.

cnet reports that a new eMarketer study reveals that people do things in an online environment that may differ from their face to face behavior. Normally we reserve this for the negative side of behavior but it works in a positive manner as well.

Of course, being less inhibited online can lead to both positive and negative behaviors. The research firm found that the Web helps 55.6 percent of men and 51.4 percent of women feel more “able to to meet new people.” Users are also using the Web to “be empowered to do something they wanted to.” The study found that 33.9 percent of male respondents and 29.2 percent of female respondents do things on the Web that they might not otherwise feel able to do offline.

While curious I am thankful that the details of what people do or not do as a result of being in the online environment were not revealed.
Now, let’s move over to eMarketer themselves and look at a pretty chart.

Well, I find this type of research both interesting and disturbing. Basically, I am seeing that convenience trumps being real. Welcome to the new world order. I am a firm believer (but admittedly not the best practitioner) that unless you have at least had a phone conversation with someone your ‘interaction’ or ‘communication’ or ‘relationship’ is experiencing stunted growth at best and a borderline delusional aspect at worst. Go ahead and gasp and yell at me. After all the chart below shows that some of you are more likely to say something about me online than you would to my face.

All in all, I always recommend that people be aware and error on the side of caution. Adults can do what they want but you parents out there need to explain to those who are growing up in this environment what the differences are between online and offline communication. Otherwise, we may end up with generations of screen gazers who think that that guy or gal on their screen really IS a nice person and that getting on a plane to meet them in person IS a great idea. Sure that works sometimes but sometimes it doesn’t. What level of risk are you willing to accept?

As for us Internet marketers, if someone is becoming truly ‘attached’ to your brand online outside of having some fun with it and getting useful information then we are in a whole new area of research that should be looked at.

So go ahead and have a fun day of lashing out at your least favorite brands and doing something you wouldn’t do if you weren’t in your jammies in the basement with your computer!

Internet Radio Trying to Carve Out a Future

While we talk about the death of newspapers with great regularity it gets to be old news real quickly and even starts to feel a little mean. So to relieve that pressure eMarketer has come out with a report that is evidence of the decline and fall of another old friend, radio. Terresttrial radio is what we are talking about here. Good old fashioned over the airwaves kind of radio is heading in the same direction as newspapers which is sad but just another harsh reality of the shift in the media of the future. eMarketer tells us

The message coming from the radio industry is clear: Terrestrial radio is in trouble financially and things will get worse before they get any better. Many of the country’s largest national broadcasters are on the verge of bankruptcy, and the Radio Advertising Bureau (RAB) announced that Q1 2009 was the industry’s worst quarter ever in terms of ad spending.

“Internet Radio Makes Waves,” a new eMarketer report, predicts the radio industry will see double-digit losses in ad spending this year alone, with terrestrial radio bringing in $14.5 billion in ad revenues in 2009, a drop of 18% from 2008 levels.

At least radio isn’t stumbling into the online space as badly as the newspaper industry has. The outlook for online radio ad spending is much brighter although it’s not going to be taking the world by storm by any means. The nice thing that online radio presents advertisers is more segmentation and more niche-oriented opportunities to target ad spend in ways that were not possible in recent years.

The chart below shows that the prediction is that online radio ad spend is poised to at least continue to grow while the jury is out on traditional radio. Early returns though seem to point to the steady decline of radio for the purist. No news on ham radio operators though so maybe there is still hope

What are your habits when it comes to radio? I know mine have changed significantly but it’s still on when I am in the car. The difference is that I listen now for different reasons and will quickly play a CD or whatever once there is nothing to being offered on the air. As for Internet radio? I’m not quite there yet but that may just be me.

Smaller Newspapers Have Fared Better Than The Big Boys

If you work for a smaller paper or you have a favorite local paper that you simply don’t want to see fade into the sunset this is OK news. I can’t honestly say that there is real good news. It’s about the newspaper business after all. TechCrunch reports that statistics gathered by the Inland Press Association show that overall the average drop in profits for the industry as a whole was 77.6%, So how do you find a bright spot in that kind of number? You look at who is floundering the least and go from there.

The sad thing is that even of the economy comes back strong at some point this century newspapers may not even see improvement because it’s the medium, not the economy, which is the biggest culprit in the agonizing demise of a once vibrant industry. The chart below shows just how bad things are for the newspaper industry and there is little hope for recovery.

Only one category saw a revenue bump in over the 5 year span studied and that was the smallest of the small papers. There are many possible reasons for this including the lack of online hyperlocal content thus allowing the paper to still be relevant as well as the lower overhead. But is this just delaying the inevitable?

One major reason for the little guys still holding some ground is the classifieds. I personally never look at the classifieds for much of anything so I am a little surprised by this

Another sign of hope: small papers still have a hold on classifieds. Average classified sales for small papers have actually gone up, at a time when they have been declining for most papers. Inland cites an example of a daily newspaper with a circulation of less than 15,000, which posted a 210.4% increase in classified revenue from 2004 to 2008. But it didn’t do much good. The paper’s profits were down by almost 30%.

Now the paper’s profits were down 30% which still means that they were profitable. Now, we’re getting somewhere. This data, however, is just like most where it can be a bit misleading. Considering the sources were the papers themselves and the information was offered voluntarily and with anonymity there may be room for some fudging. Also, there was no recognition of who suffered tremendous losses and who fared OK. The numbers can best be seen as an average.

Who really knows the real deal but there is certainly not a lot of room for celebration. When you have to concentrate on who suffered the least then you have to figure that no matter where a paper is on the scale of size there is not a tremendous amount of hope for the future.