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Holiday E-Tailers Set To Sell
By Pat Beall (Staff Writer)
Palm Beach Post
November 6, 2006
Apologies to Mr. Gump, but holiday sales predictions really are like a box of chocolates: nicely wrapped, overly sweet and more than a few nuts in there.
Jupiter Research reports a record 114 million users will spend $32 billion online this holiday season, up 18 percent from 2005.
You've heard about "Black Friday," the frenzied shopping day that follows Thanksgiving? Shopster.com, which helps e-tailers set up shop, says its 1,500 mom-and-pop online retailers are banking on "Green Monday" aka "Cyber Monday," the first work day after the post-Thanksgiving weekend - when workers of the world unite to hit the office computers and surreptitiously buy, buy, buy on company time.
Or not. TRUSTe, an online privacy concern, reports 63 percent of those surveyed who plan to shop online will limit their seasonal spree because of fears that some grinch will snap up their personal information. Among the more interesting points of the survey: 30 percent said they would limit online shopping because they like the touch and feel of bricks-and-mortar - and, we assume, elbows in the ribs from competing shoppers.
Just in case Macy's and Wal-Mart think they have the corner on serious shoppers lining up before dawn, business supplier Staples Inc. (Nasdaq: SPLS) says it will open its doors at 6 a.m. Among its predicted hot ticket items: the MailMate, a desktop-size shredder of junk mail. Like Christmas catalogs.
The International Council of Shopping Centers forecasts a 4.4 percent hike in year-over-year sales in that all-important general merchandise / clothing / furniture / electronics category; less than last year but not too shabby. And if you include January, when all those gift cards fly into stores, then the hike in holiday spending is 5.4 percent.
Ernst & Young, on the other hand, anticipates that the 2005 retail holiday sales increase for November and December will be between 6'percent and 7 percent, likely below last year's gain of 6.7'percent. Blame Hurricane Katrina, which blew away distribution centers. That makes it more expensive to get enough frenetic Elmos on the shelf, squeezing retailers' profit margins.
The bottom line from E&Y: "Retailers will begin promoting earlier in the season and promote more frequently and aggressively than originally planned," says Jay McIntosh, Americas Director of Retail and Consumer Products.
Big deals: Walallan Holdings Inc., a Florida firm controlled by New York's Allan Riley Holdings Inc., is the new part owner of a parcel at 6820 Okeechobee. Sold for $9.2 million, the property last changed hands in 2004 for $8.59 million. It's home to a Publix supermarket ... Seaspray FarmsLLC of Palm Beach has a new corporate cousin. Seaspray already owns 20 agriculturally zoned acres off Indian Mound Road in Wellington; it's also the corporate owner of the freshly formed Ocean Farms LLC, which has bought 19.8 acres at 13433 Indian Mound for $6.6 million.
