CE Raked in Nearly $19B Online During Holidays, Overall Growth Slowed, Says Comscore

Consumer electronics was one of the leading categories in holiday digital commerce sales, trailing apparel, Comscore reported Thursday. Total online CE spending was $18.5 billion vs. $27.5 billion for apparel and $13.5 billion for the grocery-pet-baby and computers-peripherals segments. Overall holiday digital commerce receipts totaled $133.7 billion, up 16 percent vs. 19 percent growth in the year-ago period. Desktop spending rose 13 percent, mobile spending grew 23 percent, and mobile as a share of total digital spending set a new high at nearly 32 percent, said analyst Ian Essling. Despite brands aggressively pushing sales weeks before the "Cyber 5" holidays (Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday) to get ahead of the shorter holiday season, the two-week period leading up to Thanksgiving was one of the slowest growth stretches of the shopping season, said Essling. Four percent desktop growth over the span was well below the 10 percent growth over the full season for desktop. Consumers have become “conditioned" to see the Cyber 5 as the best deals days, said the analyst, suggesting consumers held out for the perceived best deals. Beginning Nov. 1, 87 percent of days leading up to Christmas were “billion-dollar” spending days, he said. In-store pickup gained traction in 2019, with half of consumers surveyed preseason saying they were somewhat likely to use the service. The top reason was to avoid shipping fees (47 percent), while 33 percent cited convenience and 29 percent said in-store pickup assured the item was available. Nearly one in five consumers (19 percent) cited package theft as a reason to shop online and pick up in store. Few consumers said they shopped by voice using a smart speaker.