ShopLocal, now wholly owned by Gannett and combining some of its operations with PointRoll, has launched a blog. It promises to track retail and shopping trends and should be pretty interesting to read going into this touch-and-go holiday season.
ShopLocal is posting some of their data — they’ve got great data — on the blog:
Meanwhile comScore reported this morning that Q3 e-commerce slowed way down:
Online spending grew 6 percent in Q3 2008 versus the same period last year, a slowdown compared to the year-over-year growth rates of 12 percent in Q1 and 13 percent in Q2 2008. Total U.S. online retail sales (excluding travel) were approximately $30 billion in Q3.
Source: comScore (10/08)
Even though e-commerce has slowed way down that doesn’t mean that Internet usage around product purchases will equally slow down. In fact, people will be looking for bargains online. An interesting wild card will be mobile and how much mobile shopping applications or shopping sites will be accessed on the go this holiday season.
