Selling On Line For The Holidays

I know Christmas is near, the retailers are putting on a blitz to sell their goods as Christmas gifts both on-line and off. The new aspect is the exclusive on-line sale. That's right. What is new this year is the "Web Sale" ads that come into my mail box every day now. And these ads are by reputable businesses, not the typical spam con artists artists that flood my mail box every day of the year.
Stores like Saks, Wal Mart, J.C. Penny. Macy's, Circuit City and others are sending E mail to drum up sales. It's all because the market for Christmas sales is so important (some merchants make up to 50-% of the year profit off Christmas sales) and competitive. It starts in earnest on Thanksgiving Day when the merchants will E mail me and others about their day after Thanksgiving (traditionally, this is the biggest shopping day of the year in the U.S.) sales. Some are offering on-line only sales for Thanksgiving Day itself or special on-line only prices the day after Thanksgiving as a lure to sell to people who do not wish to fight the large in store crowds that day.
So big on-line discounts, cross-selling and other techniques are being used by stores to beat the competition. In short, the Internet is becoming a big component of shopping at holiday time. Haha I wonder if women will give up their endless mall browsing to use the Internet for their purchases? I doubt it. The in store female shopping addiction is too great to be thwarted by on-line sales. Some women may forego the mall excursions, but I doubt most will.
Estimates of total 2006 on-line holiday sales are expected to be about 20-25% of in store purchases. I haven't bought any gifts on line this season, but I did use the Target site to buy a TV stand that was on sale on-line. And I see many sales are that can only be obtained with on-line purchase. One problem is that "delivery charges" sometimes nullify the sale price or make the item even more expensive. Though the sites that deliver free have true sales, and most offer free delivery or in store pick up of the product bought on-line.
It's probably a good thing that some merchants have gotten serious about internet sales This will widen the market and tend to lower prices, but it sure has taken them a long time to use the internet that way.
Anyway, for me, anything that helps me avoid mall shopping is a very good thing.