Black Friday and Cyber Monday Combined Reach $5.3 Billion in Online Retail Sales, Up 47% on 2008

NEW YORK and LONDON, December 1 /PRNewswire/ -- Retail Decisions (ReD), a world leader in card fraud prevention, payment processing and card issuing, estimates that US online retail spend reached $2.2 billion on Cyber Monday, up 35% on last year. However, yesterday still failed to compete with Black Friday's online sales value of $3.1 billion, up a whopping 52% on 2008. Total combined spend for the two days is now estimated at a massive $5.3 billion. This is a good indication of consumers' renewed confidence in the economy, following the extreme drop in sales experienced in 2008. Cyber Monday, traditionally the second busiest online shopping day in the US, reached its online spending peak between 13:00 EST and 14:00 EST, with over $147 million spent in just one hour. Carl Clump, ReD's CEO, says, "Online retailers started discounting heavily on Black Friday, luring consumers with cash back offers, free shipping and special deals on the most popular products. Whilst Black Friday was by far the busiest day, retailers continued to compete for sales on Cyber Monday as shoppers scooped online deals."

The TomTom GPS Navigation System topped the shopping charts this Thanksgiving, with the Kodak Digital Camera, the Nintendo Wii and the Ice Age 3 DVD following closely behind (see list of top ten most popular products below). The top four most fraud prone products are currently gift cards, the Xbox 360, Nintendo Wii and the new Xbox game, "Call of Duty". Mr. Clump further commented: "Whilst online retailers witnessed a huge up-turn in sales this holiday season, fraudsters are also 'spending' more, with an average value of $248 per transaction online across the two busiest days, 23% more than the average genuine customer."

    According to ReD, the top 10 performing consumer products online are:
    What's Hot Online - Cyber Monday

     1. TomTom GPS Navigation System
     2. Kodak Digital Camera
     3. Nintendo Wii
     4. Ice Age 3
     5. Sony Digital Camera
     6. Sansui 19" LCD TV
     7. Sony Bravia LCD TV
     8. Ginii Digital Photo Frame
     9. Playstation 3 120GB
    10. Samsung Digital Camera

ReD can also see that fraudsters followed market trends by concentrating on the following products:

    What's Hot with Fraudsters

     1) Virtual gift cards and gift cards
     2) Xbox 360
     3) Nintendo Wii
     4) The "Call of Duty" Xbox game

    Contacts:

    Carl Clump
    Chief Executive
    Retail Decisions
    Tel : +44-1483-728700
    email : ceo@redplc.com

    Angela Yore / Kimberley Waldron
    PR Contact
    SkyParlour
    Tel: +44-1625-525-441
    Mob: +44-7738-822956 or +44-(0)785-0742157
    email: ayore@gmail.com / kimberley@skyparlour.com

SOURCE Retail Decisions (ReD)