The government might be reopened, but online retailers are worried about whether the uncertainty the shutdown created, along with broader economic woes, could mean a dreary holiday season for online shoppers.
EBay, usually a driver for holiday e-commerce, rattled analysts last week when its executives gave a disappointing forecast for the holiday season and said e-commerce was noticeably soft.
“The shutdown eroded two years of gains in consumer confidence,” said Colin Gillis, an analyst at BGC Partners.
Still, he said, it remains to be seen whether economic uncertainty means people shop less during the holidays.
“The average American might say, ‘I’m nervous, not as confident,’ ” he said. “But that doesn’t really mean they’re not going to go out and spend as much over the holidays. That’s one thing I’ve learned about Americans: they love to buy.”
Traditional retailers like Walmart have also reported a sluggish autumn. Last week, Walmart’s chief executive, Mike Duke, said consumer budgets have shrunk because of a tough and unpredictable economic situation.
“It’s not clear if the government back in business means e-commerce will snap back and have an excellent second half of October,” said Jordan Rohan, an analyst at Stifel Nicolaus.
During its third-quarter earnings call, Google, which makes much of its ad revenue from e-commerce, declined to forecast shopping results for the holiday shopping season but said it had not noticed a significant decline in retail spending this fall. “Over all, performance was strong in the retail sector,” said Nikesh Arora, Google’s chief business officer.
Another potential challenge for online retailers this holiday season is that people are increasingly window shopping on mobile phones, but they are still much less likely to make purchases on mobile devices than they are on computers.
Of the clicks on Google’s e-commerce ads, 31 percent were made on phones or tablets last quarter, versus just 5.4 percent a year ago, according to the Search Agency, a digital marketing firm. But people make purchases after clicking on an ad on a mobile device at just a quarter of the rate that they do on computers, according to BGC Partners.