Cyber Sales

Cyber Sales During the dotcom boom in the late 90s, obituaries heralded the end of the retail store and predicted that the Internet would overtake brick and mortar, becoming the channel of choice for consumers to buy everything from automobiles to Kleenex. Although it didn’t happen wholesale, this decade-old prediction has played itself out in some respects – the death of the bookstore is approaching, and remember Blockbuster? Amazon.com is aggressively pursuing a frontal attack on retail sales, and the best indicators that we are moving closer to Internet retail nirvana are the reports this week about retail sales on Cyber Monday, the Internet’s response to Black Friday. ComScore reported on Sunday that shoppers spent nearly $6 billion online on Monday through Friday last week, a new record, and on Monday sales exceeded $1.25 billion. During the month of November, online sales were up 15% year over year. In the face of this news, the International Council of Shopping Centers is holding its December conference this week in NYC. Attendance is up, and the mood is buoyant as retail sales are strong heading into the season. Clearly most attendees pooh-pooh the Internet threat. But with 280 million data-capable, retail-purchasing devices in the hands of US consumers today, including 95.8 million smart phones and wireless-enabled laptops, notebooks, tablets or wireless broadband modems…ICSC beware!