The holiday shopping season has kicked off better than expected for retailers across the world, even with consumers willing to budget their shopping this year.
Although the U.S. economy is in a recession, additional shoppers went online to look for online deals on Black Friday and Cyber Monday, early analyst numbers revealed.
Online trackers indicate sites such as BestBuy.com received a peak of 6.7 million visitors per minute at the busiest part of the day -- a drastic increase from 4.6 million per minute in 2007. Multiple retailers had their sites crippled from the increased traffic of Cyber Monday shoppers looking for deals.
Throughout the month of November, online spending dropped a total of four percent, but is expected to increase leading up to Christmas. Retailers are desperate to attract shoppers, using discounts and price cuts spread across a variety of products.
"The combination of aggressive holiday sales and incentives, such as free shipping, across many of the major retailers is helping drive a large number of consumers online this year," said Ken Cassar, Nielsen Online analyst. "It remains to be seen if people have done the majority of their shopping on these two big shopping days to save time, or if they are holding out for additional sales and promotions. If history is any indication, we expect that Monday, Dec. 15 will be the peak day for online shopping traffic."
HDTVs, Blu-ray players, MP3 players, PCs and notebooks, and other consumer electronics are all available at lower cost this season. If you missed a deal on Black Friday or Cyber Monday, it's likely something similar is available for a lower price.
Microsoft also outsold the Sony PlayStation 3 at a rate of 3:1 on Black Friday, and similar numbers are expected from Cyber Monday sales numbers. Despite better hardware and a built-in Blu-ray player, the PS3 has struggled to compete with the Nintendo Wii and Xbox 360.
While initial numbers from Black Friday and Cyber Monday beat analyst expectations, retailers still have to be weary of a slow shopping season, which will keep prices lower than expected. For example, the price of standalone Blu-ray players has significantly decreased, with prices only expected to slide further.
