ComScore: Ecommerce begins to soften

Changes are coming to the ecommerce landscape, primarily because of an overall weakening in the American economy. With gas prices soaring, more and more consumers are cutting back on extra spending and the majority of consumers, it seems, chose to save their IRS stimulus checks. According to a new report from comScore, online shopping is also taking a hit from the soft economy.

by Kristina Knight

The report shows that online spending softened in both May and June 2008 after a slight rebound in spending during the month of April.

"Recent comScore research reveals that fully two-thirds of consumers said they had not planned to spend their stimulus checks and rather intended to use the cash to pay off debt or put the money into savings," said Gian Fulgoni, comScore Chairman. "It's likely the impact of the stimulus may have been felt more offline, where a variety of merchants made it particularly easy for consumers to cash their checks at retail stores."

Unfortunately for many of those offline merchants, many consumers cashed the checks in-store but didn't spend their checks in-store.

What spending categories continue to run hot? Video games/consoles continue to attract a lot of attention from cash-strapped consumers. Year over year, video game and console sales increased by 73%. Furniture/Appliance sales also continue to be strong (65% increase in spending) and Event Tickets (22% increase in spending) are seeing an increase as well.