holiday - Programming Blog

Posts Tagged ‘holiday’

18 Jan 2010

U.S. software retail sales fell slightly by just over 1 percent for the 2009 holiday season, according to The NPD Group.

Sales for the 5-week holiday period totaled $278 million dollars, up from the 13 percent decline during the 2008 holiday season.

The operating systems category showed the strongest improvement during the holiday season, boosted by the sales of Microsoft’s Windows 7. Overall operating systems revenue increased from $10 million in 2008 to $29 million in 2009. Education software performed well, with revenue increasing by 15 percent, driven y the strong performance of Rosetta Stone and Topics Entertainment. Business software, which posted flat year-over-year holiday sales, was the highest revenue grossing retail software category, with sales of over $77 million.

Software-Sales

"Despite a slight decline in overall sales, boxed software showed pockets of strength as publishers, especially Microsoft, invested money in holiday promotional activity," said Stephen Baker, vice president of industry analysis at NPD.

"Aggressive pricing on Office 2007 and continued strong sales of boxed versions of Windows 7 added a big kick to retail software sales during the holiday. But weak results in the key utilities category, along with ongoing weakness in PC games sales proved too much for the market to overcome."

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Tags: Bing Gets, Bing Users, holiday, nbsp, npd group, percent, promotional activity, publisher searches, quot, Rosetta Stone, Software, Stephen Baker, u s software, U.S.

eBay Declared ‘09 Mobile Retailer Of The Year

In: web resources

18 Jan 2010

The last eBay-centric article to appear on WebProNews concerned mobile transactions during the holiday season; the company was quite proud of its stats and had made some noise about them. Now, there’s essentially been outside confirmation of its impressive performance, as eBay was declared the 2009 Mobile Retailer of the Year.

eBay

Mobile Commerce Daily is the entity that awarded eBay this title, and Giselle Tsirulnik, its senior editor, supplied quite a number of reasons for the judgment in an article today. For starters, eBay’s sales were impressive, with about 1.5 million items changing hands thanks to mobile transactions during the holiday season.

Then there was a nifty promotion using a Mobile Boutique to consider, the success of the eBay iPhone application, and the introduction of the separate Deals application. Plus, as Tsirulnik wrote, "EBay-owned online ticket marketplace StubHub went mobile in 2009," and PayPal took a lot of steps forward, too.

All of which appears to put eBay in an admirable position moving forward, since the growing popularity of iPhones and Android devices is sure to have people buying more stuff online in the future.

Of course, there are other factors to consider when thinking about a company’s success or failure, and eBay critics will be pleased to hear that it’s not having a good day on the stock market. Despite getting the Mobile Retailer of the Year award, eBay shares are down 2.43 percent right now.

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Tags: admirable position, eBay, Giselle Tsirulnik, holiday, iphones, Mobile, mobile transactions, nbsp, stubhub, success

More Than Half Of Holidays Shoppers Relied On Cell Phones

In: web resources

12 Jan 2010

More than half (51%) of holiday shoppers across 11 countries used their mobile phones for in-store activities such as comparison shopping, getting peer feedback, product information and coupons, according to a new study by Motorola.

The survey found 64 percent of GenY (age 18 to 34) shoppers used their mobile phones for in-store shopping-related activities during the holiday season. In addition, all surveyed age-segments cited interest in next-generation retail technologies to make better-informed decisions. When in-store employees used mobile technologies, such as two-way radios and handheld mobile computers, shoppers reported a better experience due to the use of the devices ((59 percent and 56 percent respectively).

Mobile-Shopping

"With nearly seven in 10 surveyed holiday shoppers either reporting flat or declining budgets, retailers vying for finite shopper dollars need to provide a seamless customer experience," said Frank Riso, senior director of retail solutions, Motorola Enterprise Mobility Solutions.

"By utilizing mobile technologies, consumers have become empowered, better informed and more critical shoppers. Retailers need to establish near-term strategies to provide product information, stock availability, discounts and coupons directly to shoppers to help them to remain competitive."

Because of the economy, shoppers were after more coupons and discounts in 2009 with 39 percent willing to abandon purchases if coupons and discounts were unavailable.

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