Pureplay
Mastercard Pulse: E-Commerce Sales to Hit $US200 Billion in 2012
- 30th January
- Neha Kale 289
Talk of economic gloom has yet to quell e-commerce growth, with Mastercard Pulse predicting that online retail sales will reach $US200 billion in 2012.
Online retail is continuing its swift upturn, despite talks of another recession and slowed economic growth. A recent MasterCard Pulse presentation at the Women’s Wear Daily Economic Forum highlighted that e-commerce sales will increase 17% year over year and is set to reach $US200 billion in 2012.
“You are looking at really substantial numbers here,” said Michael McNamara, Global Solution Leader at MasterCard Spending Pulse, in an interview with Luxury Daily. ”[Online] is where the money is, it’s where the growth is and it’s where your strategies and online dollars should be, both last year and for the next few years.”
“The trends I’m monitoring right now don’t seem to be slowing down,” he said. “In fact, they seem to accelerating in many places.”
McNamara said that holiday sales for 2011 were highly uneven, with sales increasing on November 1 and peaking on Black Friday weekend. He also confirmed that online sales remained strong from the start of November, through the first two weeks of December, slowing down from the middle of the month.
Although bricks and mortar customers tend towards last-minute shopping, the fact that online shoppers buy earlier to account for shipping offers an important incentive for retailers to fast-track e-commerce campaigns.
McNamara warned that luxury brands that neglect these figures risk surrendering sales to third-party retailers and that merchants in this market should prepare for some instability in 2012.
“When we look at luxury growth momentum for 2012, we look at the stock market performance because that [often] echoes into luxury spend,” he said.“[With] Wall Street bonuses down and Europe [when we are] in or almost in a recession could hurt East Coast tourism and cause some problems for luxury retailers.”
