AOL Drives Over $1 Billion in 1998 Holiday Shopping Sales.DULLES, Va.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 4, 1999-- 1.25 Million AOL (A division of Time Warner, Inc., New York, NY, www.aol.com) The world's largest online information service with access to the Internet, e-mail, chat rooms and a variety of databases and services. Members Become First-Time Buyers first-time buyer n → persona que compra su primera vivienda first-time buyer n → personne achetant une maison ou un appartement pour la première fois first-time buyer During Holiday Shopping Season Satisfaction Levels Among AOL Shoppers Hit All-time High; Nearly All Plan to Shop Online Again Within Next 6 Months AOL's Philanthropic phil·an·throp·ic also phil·an·throp·i·cal adj. 1. Of, relating to, or marked by philanthropy; humanitarian. 2. Organized to provide humanitarian or charitable assistance: Initiatives Raise Over $100,000 for "Share Our Strength" America Online See AOL. , the world's leading interactive service and e-commerce leader, Monday announced that its members spent over $1 billion with online retailers available through AOL during the nearly six weeks of the 1998 holiday shopping season. In addition, 1.25 million AOL members shopped online for the first time ever this holiday season. AOL members spent an estimated $1.2 billion shopping online through AOL this holiday season, the period between November 26 and December 27, according to according to prep. 1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians. 2. In keeping with: according to instructions. 3. new research produced for America Online, Inc. by the Internet Research This article is about using the Internet for research; for the field of research about the Internet, see Internet studies. Internet research is the practice of using the Internet, especially the World Wide Web, for research. Group (IRG (1) (InterRecord Gap) See interrecord gap. (2) (Internet Research Group, Los Altos, CA, www.irgintl.com) A research and consulting firm founded in 1993 that specializes in developing business strategies for Internet-related companies. ), an independent firm based in Radnor, Pa. This year, Thursday, December 17 was the heaviest shopping day of the season as well as AOL's best retail day ever -- generating over $36 million in sales of consumer goods consumer goods Any tangible commodity purchased by households to satisfy their wants and needs. Consumer goods may be durable or nondurable. Durable goods (e.g., autos, furniture, and appliances) have a significant life span, often defined as three years or more, and and travel-related services. In comparison, the 1997 holiday shopping season marked the first time that purchases by AOL members resulted in the first-ever $1 million shopping day, with a series of $1 million days following in the weeks before Christmas. IRG research also revealed: -- This holiday season, AOL motivated 1.25 million members to make their first-ever purchase online; -- 63% of AOL shoppers are "very satisfied" with the online shopping experience, and the remaining 37% are "satisfied"; and -- 98% of of AOL shoppers surveyed said they would be motivated to buy online in the next six months, with 73% "very likely" and 25% "likely." "It's clear that this past holiday shopping season marks a turning point -- when shopping online really became a key part of consumers' shopping patterns," said Bob Pittman, AOL's President and COO (Cell Of Origin) See mobile positioning. . "Though it is a critical time to get new online buyers into the habit, shopping online isn't just a holiday phenomenon. "The unbeatable ease and convenience online shopping offers was instrumental in driving an unprecedented number of consumers to try it for the first time this holiday season -- but now that they've tried it and experienced all its benefits, we expect they'll come back and shop again throughout the year." For the second year in a row, mainstream consumer products emerged as the most popular retail categories this holiday season on AOL's Shopping Channel Shopping channels are television specialty channels that present shopping related content, particularly for home shopping enthusiasts. Home shopping pioneers:
Based on traffic averages to AOL Shopping Channel departments, the Toys, Kids and Babies category held the No. 1 spot overall during November and December, followed closely by apparel, last year's most popular category. As previously reported, the average AOL holiday shopper purchased two items online every week during the 1998 holiday shopping season, and spent 48% more on each purchase than in 1998 for an average of $54.00. AOL shoppers spent nearly 50% more per purchase in 1998 than 1997. Partners As Well As Members Benefit Through Services Only AOL Can Offer AOL has become cyberspace's consumer e-commerce leader by providing services -- for both its members and its partners -- that no one else can offer. Wendy Brown Wendy Brown is a professor of political science at the University of California, Berkeley. She has made major contributions to post-Foucaultian political theory and feminist theory. , AOL's Vice President of Electronic Commerce, said, "We've been serious about online commerce for three holiday shopping seasons now and as a result, know what our members want, how to make them comfortable online and how to design shopping sites that work with the mass market. "That's why we offer both our members and our partners so much more than just a Website or a random collection of links. Because we know what our members want, we can work with our partners to provide the best possible online shopping experience -- and our members feel more comfortable shopping on AOL." Brown added, "This year on AOL, in addition to offering the best merchants, products and services, we took the member service experience to a whole new level, leveraging our Member Services organization to provide shopping tips and suggestions through a new service we called the 'Holiday Shopping Helper.' "AOL is unique in that we have the resources, and the focus on the consumer, that enable us to provide a service like this." By calling AOL's Holiday Shopping Helper on a free 800 number, AOL members were able to address questions about online shopping to real people, and get answers on everything from 'how do I shop online' to 'can you suggest a great gift for my sister?'" Almost 70% of all AOL members using the Holiday Shopping Helper rated the service as "excellent" or "very good." In addition, AOL offered its Shopping Channel partners a variety of benefits designed to help them maximize their sales this holiday season, including: -- Merchandising and promotional support: Leveraging its three years of online shopping experience with the mass market, AOL advises partners on what, when and how to promote within the AOL service to attract the most shoppers. For example, last minute shopping has been extremely popular in prior years on AOL and this year merchants were strongly encouraged offer last-minute options this shopping season. AOL also offers numerous special promotional opportunities to merchants, including the AOL Gift Finder and Gift List, and specialized spe·cial·ize v. spe·cial·ized, spe·cial·iz·ing, spe·cial·iz·es v.intr. 1. To pursue a special activity, occupation, or field of study. 2. cross-merchant collections like the Corporate Gift and Last-Minute Gift areas as well as the post-holiday Mega Clearance Sale area. -- 24x7 technical support. AOL's Web Operations Web operations is a domain of expertise within IT systems management that involves the deployment, operation, maintenance, tuning, and repair of web-based applications. With the rise of web technologies since mid-1995, specialists have emerged that understand the complexities of team uses automated au·to·mate v. au·to·mat·ed, au·to·mat·ing, au·to·mates v.tr. 1. To convert to automatic operation: automate a factory. 2. systems to monitor the performance of all AOL shopping sites, quickly identifying problems which might impact customer experience or sales and working directly with partners' technical teams to diagnose diagnose /di·ag·nose/ (di´ag-nos) to identify or recognize a disease. di·ag·nose v. 1. To distinguish or identify a disease by diagnosis. 2. and fix problems. -- Programming integration: AOL helps partners benefit from members' heavy online use (45 minutes a day) by integrating shopping advice and opportunities across the service, by educating new members about how to save time and money shopping online, by promoting targeted merchandise offerings outside of the Shopping Channel, and by offering highly contextual promotional opportunities in different content areas. Brown continued: "Linking contextually relevant product promotions into content areas that attract likely buyers has proven to deliver great results for merchants. "Being the leading online service means we know more about what our members want and how they like to spend their time online, and bringing this knowledge to our merchants and helping them understand how to apply it to online shopping is invaluable." AOL's E-Commerce Partners Speak Out AOL's 110 Shopping Channel merchant partners benefited from the consistent increases in holiday traffic and climbing numbers of first-time and repeat AOL buyers. Eli Katz, COO of Fragrance Counter (Amex: ALU (Arithmetic Logic Unit) The high-speed CPU circuit that does calculating and comparing. Numbers are transferred from memory into the ALU for calculation, and the results are sent back into memory. Alphanumeric data are sent from memory into the ALU for comparing. ), said: "Fragrance Counter's sales are up four fold this holiday season with approximately half of our total sales from America Online. Our success reaffirms the value of our long-term deal with AOL." Jon Diamond, Vice Chairman and CEO (1) (Chief Executive Officer) The highest individual in command of an organization. Typically the president of the company, the CEO reports to the Chairman of the Board. , N2K, Inc. said: "As the premier music e-commerce partner with AOL worldwide, Music Boulevard has received tremendous exposure during the holiday season and throughout the year, providing us with a tremendous number of qualified online shoppers from AOL's loyal 15 million users. "Allying our two trusted brands allows Music Boulevard to clearly demonstrate the power of music retailing on the Internet by greatly extending awareness of our brand and offering consumers the best in online music purchasing opportunities." Steve Riggio, Vice Chairman of Barnes & Noble, Inc. said: "We are very pleased with barnesandnoble.com's performance on AOL. With AOL's ever increasing membership, this is a tremendous outlet for us." Kevin Appelbaum, President and CEO of Digital Chef, said: "Digital Chef experienced an exponential growth Extremely fast growth. On a chart, the line curves up rather than being straight. Contrast with linear. in sales each day leading up to the holiday with sales up 10 times what they were the previous month. "Our prominent presence on AOL's Shopping and Food Channels were instrumental in helping us to achieve our most successful shopping season ever. In fact, items featured in AOL's online holiday shopping catalog catalog, descriptive list, on cards or in a book, of the contents of a library. Assurbanipal's library at Nineveh was cataloged on shelves of slate. The first known subject catalog was compiled by Callimachus at the Alexandrian Library in the 3d cent. B.C. and special promotions were consistently bestsellers throughout the season." The Greatest Gift To help in the fight against childhood hunger and poverty this holiday season, AOL announced that it raised more than $100,000 in philanthropic efforts to support Share Our Strength, one of the nation's leading anti-hunger and anti-poverty organizations. In addition to its Share Our Strength Online Gift-Giving Campaign, which launched on December 10 and continues through January 31, the Company worked with Tiger Toys, a division of Hasbro, Impulse Buy impulse buy n → achat m d'impulsion impulse buy impulse n → Impulsivkauf m impulse buy n → Network and OpenSite Technologies to host an online auction of this season's most popular toy, the Furby. From December 7th through December 22nd, AOL members donated over $100,000 to Share our Strength through bids made on Furby toys. About AOL Shopping With more than 15 million members on AOL -- and millions more other Internet users Internet user n → internauta m/f Internet user Internet n → internaute m/f on AOL.COM -- America Online is the undisputed leader in the online marketplace, bringing together the best roster of name-brand retail partners with the largest audience of shoppers anywhere in cyberspace. More people use America Online to shop than any other destination in cyberspace because, with more than 110 of the best brand name partners offering the largest variety of popular consumer products, AOL makes it easy and convenient for consumers to locate and buy the products they are looking for Looking for In the context of general equities, this describing a buy interest in which a dealer is asked to offer stock, often involving a capital commitment. Antithesis of in touch with. . With the Shopping Channel on AOL and AOL.COM, consumers need only visit one shopping site rather than multiple stores - to find what they are interested in buying. All of this -- brand name merchants, one-stop-shopping, and great new features and programming -- makes AOL the most popular place to browse and e-shop throughout the year. About America Online America Online, Inc., based in Dulles, is the world's leader in branded interactive services and content. America Online, Inc. operates two worldwide Internet services: America Online, with more than 15 million members; and CompuServe, with approximately 2 million members. America Online, Inc. also operates AOL Studios, the world's leading creator of original interactive content. Other branded Internet services operated by America Online, Inc. include AOL.COM, the world's most accessed Web site from home; Digital City, Inc., the No. 1 local content network and community guide on AOL and the Internet; AOL NetFind, AOL's comprehensive guide to the Internet; AOL Instant Messenger See AIM. , an instant messaging Exchanging text messages in real time between two or more people logged into a particular instant messaging (IM) service. Instant messaging is more interactive than e-mail because messages are sent immediately, whereas e-mail messages can be queued up in a mail server for seconds or tool available on both AOL and the Internet; and ICQ ("I Seek You") A conferencing program for the Internet from Mirabilis, Tel Aviv, Israel (www.icq.com). It provides interactive chat, e-mail and file transfer and can alert you when someone on your predefined list has also come online. , an instant communications and chat technology on the Internet. |
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