• by November 13, 2000

Two reports released today predict the online holiday shopping season will be... well... it's too early to tell.

On one hand, e-tailers are experiencing a slow start this season compared to the same time last year. Nielsen//NetRatings today announced the first results from its second annual Holiday E-Commerce Index, which revealed that the holiday shopping season has yet to begin - the week ending November 5 showed a zero percent growth over the prior week.

On the other hand, new research from the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and Harris Interactive (HI) shows that glitches in the 1999 holiday season are unlikely to deter this year's online shoppers.

Not to mention that Jupiter Research estimates that 6.3 million US residents will spend the majority (more than 50%) of their holiday budget online this year - an increase of 294% from 1999 when only 1.6 million spent the majority of their budget shopping online. In addition, Media Metrix today revealed a 12-month audience measurement trend showing that the proportion of visitors to shopping sites throughout 2000 already resembles the holiday season of 1999. Media Metrix's 12-month audience ratings trend indicates that nearly the same proportion of online users visited retail sites in August 2000 as did in December 1999, 74.9% and 73.3%, respectively.

So what will it be?

Ninety-six percent of last year's holiday online shoppers intend to purchase gifts online again this year, even though more than half of them experienced a purchase failure in the last holiday season, according to BCG/HI.

"In spite of a high incidence of out-of-stock items, system crashes, poor selection, and delivery problems, the vast majority of last year's online holiday shoppers said they are willing to give it another go. And they are also willing to spend more this time around," said Michael Silverstein, BCG Senior VP and Leader of the firm's Consumer Practice. "Despite the navigation and fulfillment issues, consumers see the online channel as a convenient, and accessible place for easy, no pressure shopping," he added.

According to BCG/HI, 88% intend to buy as many or more gifts online this year as they did last year, and they also expect to spend more. In 1999, the average online shopper spent $170 on holiday gifts, this year, those same consumers expect to spend $240.

But even if people are planning on holiday shopping online, they haven't started yet. By comparison, in the same first week of November last year, there was explosive growth when people first began shopping online for the holidays. Many individual e-tailers, who experienced soaring traffic during the beginning of last year's holiday season, did not enjoy the same meteoric rise during the same time period this year, according to Nielsen//NetRtings.

For example, last year's holiday shopping season began the week ending November 7, 1999, when traffic to many e-commerce sites spiked in unique visitors, according to the Nielsen//Ne