De Koopman

Webwinkel Amazon.com noemt de afgelopen feestmand de succesvolste ooit uit zijn bestaan. De offline retail echter staat het huilen nader dan het lachen.

Blogger Henry Blodget (wie?) geeft de Amazon-cijfers en analyseert:

“(…) Peak-day units ordered rose 17% vs. last year. Peak-day units shipped jumped 44%. The difference between these numbers is likely attributable to Amazon selling a higher percentage of total units (vs. third-party folks.)

These unit sales plus improvements in foreign exchange trends (dollar weakening) should allow Amazon to easily meet consensus revenue growth of around 10%. (…)”

Amazon verzond naar 210 landen, waaronder 169.000 items naar uitgezonden militairen. Het bedrijf claimt dat 99 procent van de tijdig bestelde items op tijd onder de boom belandde.

Een aantal andere opmerkelijkheden uit Amazons lange terugblik:

– Top sellers ordered from Amazon Mobile web and TextBuyIt include Monopoly Here and Now World, the Nintendo Wii and “Wall-E” (three-disc special edition + digital copy and BD Live) for Blu-ray.

– In toys, top sellers included the Eyeclops night vision stealth goggles, Blokus classic board game and Wild Planet’s Hyper Dash.

– Top sellers in consumer electronics included Samsung’s 52-inch 1080p 120Hz LCD HDTV with RED Touch of Color, the Apple iPod touch 8 GB (2nd Generation) and the Acer Aspire One 8.9-inch netbook (1.6 GHz Intel Atom N270 processor, 1 GB RAM, 160 GB hard drive, XP Home, 6 cell battery), sapphire blue.

– Nintendo Wii dominated the top sellers in video games and hardware including the Wii console, the Wii remote controller and the Wii nunchuk controller.

Maar hoe ging het eigenlijk bij de offline retailers? Dat vraagt de Wall Street Journal zich af. Niet best, zo blijkt uit dit verhaal. Een aantal relevante passages:

“(…) Despite a flurry of last-minute shoppers lured by the deep discounts, total retail sales, excluding automobiles, fell over the year-earlier period by 5.5% in November and 8% in December through Christmas Eve, according to MasterCard Inc.’s SpendingPulse unit. (…)

“This will go down as the one of the worst holiday sales seasons on record,” said Mary Delk, a director in the retail practice at consulting firm Deloitte LLP. “Retailers went from ‘Ho-ho’ to ‘Uh-oh’ to ‘Oh-no.’” (…)

Luxury goods, once considered immune from economic turmoil, were hardest hit, with sales falling 21.2%, compared with a jump of 7.5% a year ago, when the economy had just begun to sputter. Including jewelry sales, the luxury sector plunged by a whopping 34.5%.

During the same period last year, overall retail sales rose a modest 2.4%, helped by late-season discounting that enticed procrastinating shoppers. (…)

No retail sector was spared. Among the biggest losers were electronics and appliances, which fell a combined 26.7% versus a 2.7% gain last year. Women’s apparel slid 22.7% compared with a 2.4% drop a year ago. E-commerce showed the most resilience, with online sales falling just 2%. But it was still a disappointment compared with last year when online sales posted a 22.4% gain in the period. (…) ”

Foto: nukeit1 (cc)

This entry was posted on Saturday, December 27th, 2008 at 13:32 and is filed under Internationaal, Webwinkel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.