NEW YORK -- Lower prices and improved Web site usability and customer service should boost online holiday spending, Rochester, N.Y.-based Harris Interactive said Monday.
The Holiday eSpending Report, created jointly by Harris Interactive, New York-based financial services firm Goldman, Sachs, & Co., and New York-based Nielsen//NetRatings, is based on a weekly national survey of approximately 1,000 randomly selected online shoppers.
Factors drawing shoppers online include increased comfort with online shopping, greater category breadth, improved site usability, better customer service, and competitive prices.
Several categories could see online retail growth this holiday season: toys and games, home and garden, computers and consumer electronics, brick and mortar retailer/apparel (as shoppers try out products in-store before buying them online), and books, music and DVDs.
According to last year's eSpending Report released in January 2004, online shoppers spent a record $18.5 billion online, excluding travel, during the 2003 holiday season. That reflected a 30 percent year-over-year increase in spending.
Categories that generated the greatest revenue during the 2003 holiday season included apparel ($3.7 billion), toys/video games ($2.2 billion), consumer electronics ($2 billion), computer hardware and peripherals ($1.7 billion), and videos/DVDs ($1.6 billion).
