Retail Index Finds Jewelry Sales Up in February

Jewelry and furniture sales grew in February, while traditional categories,
including books, music, and software hit a lull, according to the latest
figures from the NRF/Forrester Online Retail Index.


The index is produced by the National Retail Federation and Forrester Research Inc. in conjunction
with Greenfield Online.


“Valentine’s Day was a big reason why consumers spent over $17 million more
in February on jewelry than in January,” said David M. Cooperstein, research
director at Forrester. “The increase was also due to the success of
aggressive marketing campaigns from high-end jewelers.”


The second of the monthly NRF/Forrester Index reports also showed that online
furniture sales grew from $22 million in January to $38 million in February.


Spending in traditional online categories, including books, music, and
software, experienced a calm. Combined sales in these three categories fell
from $554.1 million to $420.9 million. Total spending declined to an
estimated $2.3 billion in February from $2.7 billion in January.


Results from the February Index indicate that although individual consumers
spent the
same amount on average in February as they did in January, there were simply
fewer
shoppers.


“The decline in online retail spending from January to February is
interesting, in light of the gain in overall retail spending for the same
period announced earlier this week by the Department of Commerce,” said Scott
Silverman, NRF vice president of Internet Retailing. “The Internet as a
retail channel remains volatile, but as this channel matures we expect online
spending to more closely follow the overall industry trend.”


The Index is based on 5,000 responses to an online panel fielded by Greenfield
Online during the first 10 business days of each month. The monthly panel is
weighted to Forrester Research’s Benchmark Panel, which surveyed nearly
90,000 U.S. and Canadian members of a consumer mail panel developed by NPD
Group, a market research firm. Data was weighted to represent the North
American population demographically.

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