Traffic declines on line

Baring a major reversal in December, Target has to be asking itself what went wrong online this year. Based on data from the online measurement firm comScore, traffic at Target.com declined 1% during November to 38.8 million when compared with a year earlier. Meanwhile, the number of unique visitors to Walmart.com increased 4% to 49.3 million and surged 22% at Amazon.com, which tallied 77.5 million unique visitors. Best Buy and Sears, both of whom lag Target in traffic, nonetheless saw their unique visitors increase 18% and 19% respectively to 26.9 million and 19 million unique visitors.

The downturn in traffic comes as overall online holiday sales are expected to handily surpass the 3% growth forecast comScore issued in late November, which called for total online sales of $28.8 billion. As of Dec. 18, comScore data indicated online spending had already increased 4% to $24.8 billion, and a new single day sales record had been established on Dec. 15 when $913 million was spent online.