Online retailers gain significantly from end-of-year buying sprees

SHOPPING:  Irish consumers rang in the holidays with a significant surge in online buying that outpaced the expectations of many Irish retailers.

Following trends in Europe, the US and Canada, the Republic clicked its way under the Christmas tree and onto the Christmas table. According to retail sites, buyer enthusiasm this year translated into about a five-fold growth in retail site traffic.

Traffic, measured either as page impressions or in the number of unique visitors to a site, leapt about 250 per cent at Irish retail portals Buy4Now.com, which operates retail sites for 18 businesses, and at Pigsback.com, an Irish "empathy" marketing and purchasing awards site that represents many Irish merchants.

Because both sites aggregate major Irish merchants such as Tesco, Superquinn, XtraVision, Arnott's and Eason's, as well as hotels and many smaller companies, they give a good general overview of the Republic's online retailers. However, figures are not independently verified.

"October, November and December were very busy months. Talking to our retail partners, they certainly said it was a very, very good Christmas," said Mr Michael Dwyer, Pigsback managing director.

Holiday purchases at Buy4Now reached €3.5 million (£2.7 million) in December, out of a year's total of €11 million, according to managing director Mr Ali Murdoch.

The 208,000 visitors to Buy4Now last December contrasted with 55,000 in December 2000, and far exceeded the firm's internal predictions of 150,000 visitors, said Mr Murdoch.

Food, videos, books, music and DVDs topped consumer buying lists for both sites, although a surprise top ten best-seller for Buy4Now was the Bare and Beautiful hair remover, offered through the Eircom store.

Sales of food were "phenomenal", said Mr Murdoch, with Buy4Now delivering 3,000 Christmas dinners and 1,000 general food orders for Superquinn. The average food order totalled €180, he said.

Food also generated plenty of traffic at Pigsback, if measured by the number of food discount coupons printed out by consumers for use in Tesco. In the fourth quarter of last year, 40,000 coupons were run off people's printers, compared to 9,000 in the same quarter of 2000.

Mr Dwyer said other good Christmas performers were XtraVision, with mobile phones, DVD players and gaming consoles; DMGdirect, with CDs and DVDs; and vouchers for hotel breaks.

"In general, there was a lot of interest in lower-value consumer items and in hotel vouchers," he said.

Buy4Now merchants that performed well were DMGdirect; The Source, the "wacky" Temple Bar retailer of quirky gift items; Easons; and wine and food sites. The number one gift item from the site was Christmas hampers.

Other items, in descending order, were Arnott's gift vouchers, a Superquinn mixed wine case, a Christmas bouquet from Sheila's flowers, the video Shrek, another Superquinn mixed wine case, a Siemens G100 cordless phone from Eircom, another Sheila's Christmas bouquet, Robbie William's Swing When You're Winning CD, and the Bare and Beautiful hair remover.

Irish consumers are becoming more comfortable with making purchases online, said Mr Murdoch.

In addition, "There's much more online for the Irish consumer this year than last," said Mr Dwyer.

Both Mr Murdoch and Mr Dwyer said the September 11th attacks in the US apparently did not affect online sales, although site traffic practically halted during that week. They also believe the lack of high-speed internet access is the biggest obstacle to a healthier e-commerce climate in the State.

Internationally, online sales growth surged far ahead of bricks-and-mortar growth for December, according to various surveys. According to analyst Jupiter MMXI, holiday-period site visitors in Europe increased 40 per cent over last year in most countries, with 33 million Europeans shopping online.