Mid-December: How Online Retail Sales Are Shaping Up

Here we are, December 19^th. Just five business days until the Christmas weekend. And everyone wants to know how online retail is doing.

The answer is that consumers are out shopping in force (at least online). Consider that for the week of December 11^th through December 17^th in 2011 versus the comparable week in December 2010, online sales are up nearly 11 percent. Mobile traffic hit 12.1 percent and sales completed on mobile devices hit nearly 9 percent—growth of 143.9 percent and 134.4 percent over the same period last year, respectively.

I’m predicting that when the final numbers come in for the entire month of December, we’ll see an online sales increase of between 9.5 percent and 10 percent for this December over last year’s. But the real question is this: with so many people buying iPads for loved ones, how will the anticipated jump in iPad adoption change online shopping patterns?