Finally, even if these number are accurate – I completely agree with David Fry post above – smaller companies (that tend to gravitate towards SAAS deliver model) would skew stats towards larger numbers as such small business can go from 300 products sold in a month last year to 400 this year and that would be 33%!!! Whereas larger businesses selling tens thousands or hundreds of thousands of orders per month would have to work very hard to squeeze out such double digit growth numbers in such tough economic downturn…

Let’s all get realistic here – when entire retail industry is in a slump due to deep and extensive recession, everyone will fill it – even the small guys. In fact, latest quarterly reports from Amazon and Walmart demonstrate that people tend to gravitate towards such big box or big box online equivalents as Amazon.com and Walmart.com during tough times seeking deals and promotions. And big guys like Amazon and Walmart are there to offer these deals! These are public companies and I tend to trust numbers that are publicly reported and audited.

In the interest of brevity, I can see how my statements may not have been clear. Actually, Chase Paymentech did report, “The peak shopping season (the period between Thanksgiving and Christmas) sales were down 4.5 percent.” http://is.gd/gpNJ

Also, comScore published a press release on January 2 reporting they use MasterCard Advisors’ SpendingPulse data as a macro-economic indicator of overall holiday results. http://is.gd/et0C

Thanks for the clarification.

- Chase Paymentech reported an increase in sales (not decrease) of 4.5% from Nov 1 to Dec 31. Sales came in much later in the season.

- Comscore uses a consumer panel for their methodology (not Mastercard data as far as I know)

The companies that did well got our early, and hustled through the season.

Darwin’s principle is in action at online retailers – the fittest and wisest will survive and thrive. The others sadly won’t.

First, a lot of the stats involve smaller companies or businesses that just went online in the last year or two. Those merchants will definitely see 30 and 40% annual growth because they come from a much smaller base.

Second, some of the product categories with the largest e-commerce penetration (such as electronics and books, music, and DVDs) had volume drops in general this holiday, both online and in the store. So it means that, in total, all of e-commerce revenue may have dropped (as indicated by Mastercard and Comscore) while most individual retailers still saw growth (as indicated by Shop.org). They’re not necessarily contradictory facts.

What we see is that luxury brands and certain product categories had a tough holiday online, whereas most value players, general merchandise, and especially apparel, did “okay.” But hardly any established online player had a great Christmas.