Posted on Tuesday, November 15th, 2005 at 6:50 am
Online retailers are expected to have a cheerful holiday season thanks to legions of new shoppers buying gifts over the Internet, say two new forecasts.
Sales will grow 18 percent over last year to $26 billion, according to a report released Monday by JupiterResearch. A more optimistic study to be released today by Forrester Research predicts that online holiday sales will jump 25 percent to $18 billion.
The forecasts show that the e-commerce is still strong 10 years after the founding of industry giants Amazon.com and eBay. Shoppers continue to migrate online, lured by convenience, a proliferation of free shipping offers and the prospect of saving money by driving less — given the current high gasoline prices.
