Furniture sites record strong holiday season
By Brian Carroll -- Furniture Today, April 14, 2002
NEW YORK — Not considered a traditional holiday gift, furniture benefited from a record-breaking online holiday shopping season. One index said that traffic to e-commerce sites selling furniture jumped 59%.
Jupiter Media Metrix, which tracks average daily visitors on the Web in several product categories, said that in the fourth week of the holiday shopping season furniture sites averaged 252,000 daily visitors. Jupiter canvases nearly 500 shopping sites for its weekly series.
Steve Antisdel, chief executive officer of FurnitureFind.com, said he wasn't surprised. Furniture sales at his site "have been very strong, beyond our expectations."
Antisdel says his math puts FurnitureFind.com's share of the market in the double digits.
Jupiter's index numbers are for the week ending Dec. 16. Traffic overall increased 55% compared with the same week in 2000, climbing to 52 million unique visitors.
"The growth trajectory increased each week during the first four weeks of this year's holiday shopping period, which is in marked contrast to last year when year-over-year growth rates declined each week," said Charles Buchwalter, vice president of media research for Jupiter.
"That translates into a holiday season where the majority of online shopping activity occurs closer to Christmas versus earlier in the shopping season," Buchwalter said.
The report also indicates a heavy amount of research and shopping done online before visits to brick-and-mortar stores for the purchase.
"The late-season momentum of this year's online holiday traffic suggests that this year's sales expectations are likely to be exceeded," said Jared Blank, Jupiter analyst.
"Steady traffic to many brick-and-mortar sites indicates that consumers are researching online with the intent of buying in the actual stores, highlighting the need for retailers to integrate their online and off-line operations," Blank said.
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