Online Sales of Computers and Consumer Electronics To Decline?
By Anna Johnson on June 30th, 2008A report by eMarketer indicates that while retail e-commerce sales in the U.S. will increase by 14.3 percent over last year’s volume to reach $146 billion in 2008, online sales of computers and consumer electronics may fall.
U.S. sales of consumer electronics tend to peak in November-December, while sales of computers tend to peak in the July-August pre-school months. If sales during these peak seasons fall this year, that may indicate a downturn in these categories overall.
According to Nielsen Online, in November 2007, the average order size for consumer electronics hit an annual high of $135, settling to $132 in December. Meanwhile, in 2007, monthly online sales of computer hardware were $455 in July and $387 in August.
It will be interesting to see if reality bears out eMarketer’s predictions. Nevertheless, if you sell computers or consumer electronics and there is a decline in online spending on these items, the question is: how can you buck the trend and add such value to your products that people still come to you when they want to buy a computer, or an iPod, or a whatever?
