Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeesssssssssssssssssssssssss!

Christmas came and went.

now there is only 363 more days until retail chains everywhere, complain about what a really shitty and miserable financial dissapointment that the celebration of the birth of Christ was.

[T-Rav]

I sense a little "bah humbug"

but I totally agree with you...

[Almighty Colin]

I heard something like this on the news yesterday. "Christmas Sales were disappointing. Up 2% from last year".

[Mike AI]

Yeah I would be interested in seeing real numbers.... I saw tons of people shopping, I know I spent as much as in past years. Merchants were already complaining a month ago....

[Vick]

There weren't enough sales of on line porn on Christmas

[Mutt]

FAO Schwartz bankrupt. Walmart stock went down yesterday, Xmas sales were lower than projected.

i'd hate to be a retailer, seems very hard to compete these days in most categories of retailing.

[Hell Puppy]

I did some analysis on my numbers from my mainstream sites that use Amazon's affiliate program. My sales volume tripled on a per click basis when comparing Q4 this year versus Q4 last year. Click through percentages to Amazon were up as well when compared against both Q4 2001 and Q3 2002.

My conclusion is people were a lot more willing to buy online this year.

Online sales are still a small percentage of the retail pie, but it'll be interesting to see how the final numbers of the Amazons of the world compares to the Wal-Marts.

[Mike AI]

HP I think you nailed the real issue. Every news story I have seen talks about low time for retailers, then in next segment they talk about how online sales grew by BILLIONS for the holidays. I think the same amount or more was bought - just consumers are shifting around to buying things online.

Who wants to fight traffic, and the crowds??

The scary thing is right after the news story on online sales, is a story on California looking for ways to tax these online sales....

[funkmaster]

... ahhh, the last 4 month of 2002 were just great !!

http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=FWHT&d=c&k=c1...3m&l=on&z=m&q=l

[SykkBoy]

I just bought 3 of those $199 computers from Wal-mart.com hopefully that'll help their bottomline a bit )))))

[Hell Puppy]

Originally posted by Mike AI@Dec 27 2002, 06:50 PM
I think the same amount or more was bought - just consumers are shifting around to buying things online.

Who wants to fight traffic, and the crowds??

The scary thing is right after the news story on online sales, is a story on California looking for ways to tax these online sales....

I dont really track exactly how much I spend on Christmas very closely, I just buy what I think are cool gifts for everyone on my list. But I'm guessing I spent at least as much as last year.

However, all but 2 items were purchased online this year. Even though he had no packages for me, the UPS guy stopped by again today just out of habit...

If the states start to feel a significant volume of sales tax money is lost via online purchases, you can bet taxation is coming. If there has to be a tax, I would like to see them just collect normal sales tax for internet and mail order for your state of residence rather than some new additonal "internet tax".

But I wont start a tax rant...I'm still enjoying the spirit of the holiday season...

[Peaches]

Originally posted by Hell Puppy@Dec 27 2002, 11:04 PM
If the states start to feel a significant volume of sales tax money is lost via online purchases, you can bet taxation is coming. If there has to be a tax, I would like to see them just collect normal sales tax for internet and mail order for your state of residence rather than some new additonal "internet tax".

But I wont start a tax rant...I'm still enjoying the spirit of the holiday season...

Most states actually do have a "use tax" form that you're supposed to fill out for internet purchases (or any purchases where you're not taxed at the point of sale).

The states could work around enforcing this by requiring online stores to have a nexus in each state they deliver to. Since Amazon has a shipping facility, in GA we automatically get taxes tacked on to our purchases

[Hell Puppy]

Yeah, in many states they do already collect sales tax. That's one reason I would hate to see an internet tax. It would be bad for internet commerce in that you'd be penalized for buying online by being double taxed.

If we have to have anything, just use the existing state sales tax infrastructure. It's easily implemented and keeps the playing field level.

Oh, and Amazon closed their distribution center in Georgia, so no tax on Amazon shipments here. Though I actually miss that distribution center. It was in McDonough, so although I had to pay sales tax I could get most items from Amazon next day without paying extra shipping as that center is only 1 day away via UPS Ground.

I cant complain though, the southeastern distribution center for Netflix works out of the same post office that serves my house. So I get my DVDs to and from Netflix *very* fast.