As the holiday season wound down, U.S. residents kept on
shopping significantly more than they did in 2006, particularly on the day after
Christmas, but they also reported being less satisfied with e-tailers, according
to a pair of studies.

Between Nov. 1 and Dec. 27 -- the first 57 days of the holiday season -- U.S.
shoppers spent almost US$28 billion in online retail purchases, up 19 percent
compared with the same period in 2006, according to comScore.

Shoppers spent $545 million on Dec. 26, more than doubling the spending on
that day in 2006, as they took advantage of "late-season" offers and
discounts, according to comScore.

Still, it looks like online spending growth for the 2007 holiday season will
fail to meet comScore's 20 percent forecast, and fall way below the 26 percent
growth registered during this period in 2006.

ComScore chalks up the smaller-than-expected growth to several factors, including
warm weather in early November and various economic challenges this year, including
higher gas prices, the real estate crunch and a "jittery" stock market,
the company said Sunday.

Andrew Lipsman, a comScore senior analyst, pointed out that the 2007 online
holiday shopping season was dragged down by very slow sales in November's first
week, particularly in the key apparel and accessories category, as people put
off buying winter clothes due to warmer-than-usual weather.

However, if one looks at the "core" of the holiday shopping season
-- between Thanksgiving and Christmas -- spending increased 21 percent, compared
with the same period in 2006, he said.

While it's undeniable that economic factors also affected spending in 2007,
the growth also naturally slows as the online retail market expands and matures,
a trend that will continue, Lipsman said.

Another important metric that dropped this holiday season compared with 2006's
was customer satisfaction, according to ForeSee Results, a provider of online
customer-satisfaction measurement services.

A survey of more than 11,000 shoppers revealed that, on a 100-point scale, customer satisfaction with the largest 40 e-tailers dropped, in aggregate, to 74 points, down 1 point from the 2006 holiday season, according to ForeSee. It conducted the survey in conjunction with FGI Research using the methodology of the University of Michigan's American Customer Satisfaction Index.

While e-tailers in general made great strides in e-commerce innovation and
improvements in the previous two holiday shopping seasons, they failed to deliver
significant enhancements in 2007, said Larry Freed, ForeSee's CEO.

"I have a hard time putting my finger on anything retailers did across
the board that improved the experience from a consumer standpoint," he
said.

In previous years, e-tailers wowed shoppers with more product images that were
of better quality and could be zoomed into and rotated, and also aggressively
expanded their consumer-generated review sections, Freed said.

"Consumers' expectations for Web site experiences increase every year,
so we as consumers expected a bit more than we had last year and I don't know
that we saw a lot more. I think that was the driving force in seeing the overall
satisfaction going down one point," he said.

While it wouldn't be the only factor in the slower-than-expected growth in
spending, the lower satisfaction likely played a part in it, Freed said.

"A 1-point drop, though not large, is still something of a concern and
is hopefully a wake-up call to retailers to continue to innovate and improve
the experience for consumers if they want to see continued strong growth,"
he said.

Still, the spending growth in online shopping this holiday season, even at
19 percent, would greatly outpace the growth of overall U.S. retail holiday
spending, forecast at 4 percent by the National Retail Federation.

That 4 percent growth rate -- which would put 2007 holiday season retail spending
in the U.S. at almost $475 billion -- would fall below the 10-year average of
4.8 percent and be the slowest since 2002, according to the National Retail
Federation.

IDG News Service

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