Holiday Online Sales To Grow This Year, But At A Much Slower Rate
Written by Evan SchumanTwo new reports paint a relatively slow growth picture for holiday E-tailers, although the projections are for double-digit growth this year. The dour side is that both projections are about half of the growth rate experienced last year. Forrester Research on Tuesday (Oct. 21) reported an expected online U.S. E-Commerce growth rate of 12 percent this holiday season, projected to hit $44 billion.
Part of the slowdown is a reduction in first-time Web buyers, which is certainly not an unexpected development at this stage of E-Commerce’s existence. On Wednesday (Oct. 22), eMarketer projected a slightly less optimistic report, reporting only a 10.1 percent increase, to $32.1 billion. eMarketer found that last year’s increase was almost double, at 19.6 percent. Forrester’s report for last year saw an 18 percent increase.
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I have strong reservations about the 'individual' certification and posting of that information for merchants. Can you imagine the potential employee poaching that might occur? The implications when competitors can look up how many are certified with each of their competitors? 
-Christine
