E-commerce no barrier for last minute Christmas shoppers

octomedia

13th Jan 2016

Last minute Christmas shoppers were still hunting for online bargains right up until December 23, according to data from online bargain hunting website, BargainSpot.

BargainSpot, which was launched in November 2015 by father and son duo Chris and Justin Gray, searches for the highest discounted buys from Australia’s leading retailers in a range of categories.

“Surprisingly, the Christmas sales continued all the way until the evening of the 23rd,” Justin Gray told Internet Retailing.

“It shows how important it is for retailers to offer affordable express shipping over the holiday period to cater for all those last minute shoppers.”  

Popular products searched for on BargainSpot during the gift-giving period included pool toys, such as water slides and inflatables.

“Kids ride-ons were also popular, and bed linen. There was also a lot of fashion and shoes sold over this period,” Gray said.

“The sales spiked again on Boxing Day, and that spike is continuing even now. There are still many great end of year sales on offer, and so there is a lot of buying still happening.”

The site also features a sale alert tool that sends an email notification to shoppers when the product they have pinpointed has fallen to the price they want to pay.

BargainSpot currently includes inventories from around 90 participating retailers, displaying more than 4,500 brands and has plans to add more retailers in 2016.

Retailers such as Target, Kathmandu, SurfStitch and Just Jeans have signed up to promote their online sales via BargainSpot.

“Our key priorities for this year revolve around introducing new retailers and increasing the inventory,” Gray said. “The more sales data we have access to, the better it is for our bargain hunters. We are also working on improving the way we identify the best items and prioritising what products are displayed throughout our main categories.”