A new site, AmazonCreditsYou.com, aims to help shoppers at the e-commerce giant enforce Amazon's policy of giving customers rebates when prices drop within 30 days of a purchase. The site invites users to submit their e-mail addresses and the ISBN numbers of the items they purchase from Amazon.com. If Amazon.com drops the price of an item within 30 days, AmazonCreditsYou.com--which has no affiliation with Amazon.com--sends users an e-mail message telling them they can submit a request for a credit for the difference. Site co-creator Scott Thompson said he and the other founder, Keith Kritselis, got the idea for the site based on their own experiences as Amazon consumers. "We've bought stuff from Amazon over time, and always forgot to check back and see if the price changed. We were just too busy doing other things," said Thompson. "So, we decided to automate it. Since we do read our e-mail a lot, we realized that if we could send ourselves an e-mail notice, that would be simple and efficient." Registration with the site is free, and the site is monetized via a Google AdSense unit and an Amazon affiliate ad unit. Thompson said the site does not have an official privacy policy yet, but the e-mail addresses collected by the site are not shared with third parties, and there are no plans to do so in the future. The site is built off of Amazon.com's public application programming interface, and was designed by Thompson and Kritselis, who have designed sites such as CutestDamnBaby.com, where people post and rate baby pictures, and MyPollingSite.com, which directs users to Web sites with information about the locations of local election polling places.
Consumers spent 27 percent of their holiday budgets online at e-commerce sites this year--up from 16 percent in 2002, according to a report released Thursday by Nielsen//NetRatings, Goldman, Sachs & Co., and Harris Interactive. The Nielsen//NetRatings report also stated that total online commerce revenues for the period Oct. 29 through Dec. 23 came to $30.1 billion--marking a 30 percent increase from last year. Separately, comScore Networks Thursday reported more conservative ecommerce estimates; it stated that total online shopping revenues for the period Nov. 1 through Dec. 25 totaled $18.11 billion--25 percent more than last year. Both reports stated that the top three product categories this year were apparel, computer hardware, and consumer electronics--but comScore and Nielsen//NetRatings had different estimates for those categories. Nielsen//NetRatings reported that apparel and clothing accounted for approximately $5.3 billion; computer hardware and peripheral sales came to around $4.8 billion; and consumer electronics totaled approximately $4.8 billion. comScore reported found that sales of apparel and accessories totaled $3 billion; computer hardware and peripheral sales totaled $4.1 billion; and consumer electronics sales came to $1.3 billion. comScore also revealed that the fastest-growing categories this year were sports and fitness--which saw revenues grow by 49 percent; apparel and accessories--37 percent; event tickets--37 percent; computer software, excluding games--35 percent; furniture, appliances, and equipment--34 percent; and video games, consoles, and accessories--34 percent.