Online holiday sales ‘utterly exploding’
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MARK AUSTIN THOMAS: Overall holiday sales are expected to grow a ho-hum 3 to 4 percent this year. But as Hillary Wicai reports, shopping on the Internet is taking off.
HILLARY WICAI: Online holiday sales are up 25% over this time last year.
Howard Davidowitz is a national retail consultant.
HOWARD DAVIDOWITZ: This channel is the hottest retail channel ever. It’s utterly exploding.
He says e-tailers wisely extended the season. Many now guarantee Christmas delivery for orders up until December 20. E-tailers are also reaching out to procrastinators by pushing shopping online, but picking up at the store.
DAVIDOWITZ: It’s never too late, you use the Internet to finish up your holiday shopping, now that’s assuming you can find parking, but you can go to the store and pick it up and that has very broad applicability.
ComScore Networks forecasts nearly $25 billion in online holiday sales this year.
I’m Hillary Wicai for Marketplace.
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