The weather outside might be frightful, but the bottom lines will be delightful, if all the breathless predictions about the coming holiday season are on target. A holiday shopping survey from Amazon.com and Harris Interactive finds that women are turning to the Internet in record numbers to solve their holiday shopping needs, shoppers are looking to the Internet to ease stress, and online shoppers will easily outpace last year's numbers in dollars spent.
Nearly three-fourths of Internet users (72%) will use the Internet to buy or research holiday gifts this year, up from 39 percent for the 1998 holiday season. Additionally, 23% of consumers will use the Internet to purchase at least one holiday gift - a 188% increase from the 8% of Internet users who bought online last years. The survey extrapolates to predict that 23 million shoppers will make online purchases this holiday season, accounting for total online holiday sales of more than $8 billion.
(Amazon.com: Paul Capelli, 206/266-7180.)