2010 Online Christmas Retail Report

Snow was a regular occurrence during the latter stages of 2010 as blankets of white consumed everything it touched. Wide-spread disruptions spread across the UK while businesses were left to suffer the consequences of the mischievous weather.

But surely it was only the high-street shops that suffered due to the snow? Online sales must have gone through the roof pre-Christmas, right? Wrong!

Online Retail Sales vs The Snow: What Comes Out on Top?

A recent study revealed that the snow had a serious affect on the way people conducted their searches for products over the Christmas period. Searches for winter clothes increased throughout the UK – including snoods, as worn by such high profile footballers as Nasri and Balotelli, which sky-rocketed by 150%.

However, despite winter wear being highly sought after during the former stages of December, online sales took a plummet – including Cyber Sunday – as disruptions to travel and deliveries caused a big decline in pre-Christmas shopping.

High street sales were also affected on the last Saturday before Christmas – the 18th. Shoppers were unable to navigate the icy streets, thus there was a big dip in what is usually the busiest shopping day before the 25th.

This in turn had a huge impact on post-Christmas sales. Due to the snow, users simply didn’t want to risk their online deliveries getting caught out in the cold; literally. This saw the biggest post-Christmas period that online retail has ever witnessed – increasing by 70% from 2009.

Boxing day, too, reached monumental heights as it became the biggest day of the year for online retail shopping, while the January VAT increase greatly contributed towards record post-Christmas traffic levels.

Competitive Sales: What Were the Biggest Products During the 2010 Christmas Period?

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Apple was hugely successful over Christmas with six products in the Top 20 Cyber Sunday List. The iPhone was the most searched item, while the iPad was the most wanted of 2010. Out of the six, though, Apple’s iPhone 4 was the worst performer.

Online gaming has always occupied the top spots throughout Christmas, but this year saw the Playstation 3 become the number one console for the first time ever; pushing the Wii and Xbox 360 to second and third, respectively.

However, despite claiming the number one spot, it was the Nintendo Wii which claimed the most searched games as Wii Party and Wii Sports beat the competition at a canter.

And although sitting in third, Xbox 360 still managed to have the most successful accessory, with searches for the Kinect shadowing the opposition.

Lego on the other hand proved that you don’t need electronics and high-tech gadgets to be number one. The building blocks were the most popular gift, not just over Christmas, but throughout 2010. And while the eagerly anticipated Toy Story 3 toys were expected to make huge profit, their sales were severely dwarfed by Lego who cruised ahead of the pack. This success can be greatly attributed to the popular console games and films that Lego release.

Facebook vs The World: How Did The Online Community Fair on Christmas Day?

Facebook UK reached a landmark of their own, as did Google. The sheer volume of online users flooding onto Facebook to send their best wishes to family and friends saw them overtake Google as the most visited website in the UK on Christmas day; pushing Google to second for the first time.

To put this into perspective; the UK public spent a combined estimate of 6million hours watching the Eastenders Christmas special, while Facebook’s online community spent a staggering 24million hours social networking.

This success benefited the retailers that use the social networking site to advertise – most notably Topshop, who received 18% of their Christmas day traffic from Facebook.

Short Term Loss, Long Term Gain!

It is evident that although the snow disrupted online sales on the run up to Christmas, the overall benefits far outweighed the negatives as levels of traffic reached new heights. But given the fact that high street sales were down, it could be argued that sales were made up post-Christmas.

Verdict: Online Sales suffer an early scare, but fight back to claim the victory.

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