A survey of 33,000 online shoppers indicates that consumer holiday sales made
between Nov. 26 and Jan. 3 reached $1.96 billion, according to BizRate.com, which monitors online customer
satisfaction.
The more frequent online shopper (defined as someone who has made more than
five online purchases) spent almost 20 percent more than the average first-
time buyer, BizRate.com said.
The peak buying week was December 14 – 20, with almost $394 million in
transactions.
When asked about factors contributing to overall customer satisfaction, online
buyers responded with the most criticism for “On-Time Delivery,” which
experienced its most visible decrease between Dec. 8 and Dec. 22.
According to the BizRate.com data, men (perhaps not surprisingly) reported
more last minute online shopping than women. During a “busy” holiday shopping
period (Dec. 1 through Dec. 18), men were making 58 percent of total online purchases. But,
during the “last-minute” shopping period (Dec. 19 to Dec. 24), 66 percent of total
online purchases were made by men.
BizRate.com, an independent source of point-of-sale market research, is a
proprietary service of Binary Compass Enterprises, a market
research firm specializing in the study of customer satisfaction on the Web.