Associated Press
NEW YORK — Based on early sales reports, the holiday shopping season appeared to be off to a better-than-expected start for online retailers. The news pushed shares of key Internet stocks higher in trading Monday.
Shares of Amazon.com, the bellwether of the Internet industry, surged more than 34 percent, or $3.13, closing at $12.21 on the Nasdaq Stock Market, on early indications that holiday sales growth may be better than expected. In extended trading, Amazon shares were up another 27 cents.
Yahoo! Shopping estimated that sales through its portal site from Friday to Sunday, the Thanksgiving weekend, were 75 percent higher than the same time a year ago. That was well above analysts’ projections for a 30 percent to 50 percent gain. The news prompted Yahoo’s shares to soar nearly 15 percent, or $2.34, closing at $18.07. Shares were up another 15 cents in extended trading.
Meanwhile, Kmart’s Bluelight.com saw sales up 45 percent for Thursday through Sunday, compared to the year-ago holiday weekend, said spokesman Dave Karraker. Traffic was unchanged, suggesting that more browsers were being converted into buyers.
"This is a great start for us, and exceeded expectations," Karraker said. "This should silence a lot of nay-sayers who were down on the potential for
e-commerce this year."
He added, "We didn’t even offer any shipping promotions or dollars off discounts," he said.
Still, such comforting news won’t prompt Ken Cassar, an analyst at Jupiter Research, to change his forecasts for a modest 11 percent gain this holiday to $11.9 billion, from last year’s $10.8 billion.
"The early indications seem to be positive, but it is difficult to extrapolate these results to the entire e-commerce community," he said.
Cassar said that e-commerce has lost its "gee-whiz" factor, and is more vulnerable to the slowing economy this year.
With the exception of Amazon.com, brick and mortar retailers’ online sites were among the most popular this weekend.
According to Nielsen/NetRatings, Amazon led the traffic on Friday, attracting 1.7 million users, registering a 33 percent increase from the previous week.
Wal-Mart saw a 132 percent increase to 355,011 shoppers, followed by Target.com, which attracted 312,000 shoppers, or a 152 percent gain. Kmart’s Bluelight.com saw 227,000 shoppers, a 227 percent increase, and Sears drew 220,000 visitors, up 73 percent. J.C. Penney Co. Inc., grew to 217,000 visitors, an increase of 86 percent.
The big test for online retailers will be in the next two weeks, which represents the bulk of online holiday sales.
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