12/05/2008, 5:40pm, EST
Friday, December 5th
Apple ranks 5th most visited site on Cyber Monday
Days after the popular Black Friday shopping promotions, Apple's website placed 5th in a ranking of retail site visitors on Cyber Monday. The traffic exceeded 3.6 million unique visitors, marking a 43 percent increase above the daily average for November, according to a ComScore report. The Cupertino-based company was the only computer manufacturer in the top five, exceeding Dell's 2.3 million visitors and HP's 1.9 million visitors. Apple has been known to hold its prices relatively steady, with the most significant discounts offered on Black Friday.
Monday's traffic was lead by eBay, with Amazon, Wal-Mart and Target finishing out the top four. Despite many dire predictions for holiday sales, retail sites experienced a 33 percent increase in overall visitors compared to the November averages, with an additional $113 million in sales above the $733 million on the same day last year.
Reported shortages of iPod models may be an indication that recent sales exceeded the manufacturer's expectations. Amazon.com recently quoted shipping time estimates for the iPod touch that ranged from three to five weeks for some models. In brick-and-mortar outlets, the depletions seemed to be limited to particular colors or storage capacities.
Kaufman still holds a prediction of 21 million iPod shipments for the quarter ending in December, representing a five percent drop from last year's quarter. Despite strong Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales, the effect of the economic recession will not be fully gauged until the entire holiday shopping season has past.
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obnoxious ads
ok that ad that popped up as I cursored over a word and played video has gone too far. I won't read from MacNN again until I read that those ads are gone forever.
no
Amazon says it will have iPod Touches in (all models I think) on December 10th. I don't know where the 3-5 week time frame came from.
just visiting...
I'm guessing that lots of people visited the online AppleStore in the vain hope of finding some genuine bargains and departed feeling more than a little disappointed. So, with complete data, that is visits vs. purchases, we might know how many people were disappointed. By the sounds of things, it was millions. In which case, it was NOT a good day for Apple. It might be an idea to hold off on writing a story until MacNN actually has some meaningful data.
and...
how did they do on over-the-credit-limit Tuesday, and shopping-recovery Wednesday, and to-hell-with-it Thursday?
I mean, we do name all the days between Thanksgiving and Christmas now, right?