Turmoil, Deals and Sociability

As we prepare for the 2011 holiday season, online and offline data confirm what we already know: consumers willingness to spend this year is up in the air.

It was reported last year that Americans were spending like it was 2007 again at the end of the holiday season. Analyzing the traffic to online retail sites for the 2010 holiday season, data from Experian Hitwise, a division of Experian Marketing Services, told a promising story. Black Friday traffic surged more than 13 percent above that of the previous year, for example. By the day after Christmas, however, that gain had eroded to only 3 percent. Fast forward to the week ending May 28, 2011, when visits to the top 500 retail websites was up only .5 percent from the previous year.