The Future of Buying Timeshare (and Everything Else) Online
Wednesday, August 8, 2012
The following article, written by Jason Tremblay, founder of SellMyTimeshareNOW and VacationOwnership.com, appeared in the May issue of The Resort Trades. “The Future of Buying Timeshare (and Everything Else) Online,” looks at the changing dynamic of how people shop as online sales expand to include buying from tablets, smart phones, and other “always accessible” devices. In a changing world how vacationers are buying timeshare is clearly changing too.
This article is published here with the permission of The Resort Trades. Be sure to visit www.resorttrades.com for more news and information about timeshares, fractionals and vacation ownership.
The future of buying timeshare (and everything else) online
First quarter results are in and U.S. e-commerce sales are stronger than ever. While fourth quarter numbers have previously topped $50 billion thanks to seasonal spending, this year’s current numbers mark the first time we’ve hit the $50 billion milestone when it wasn’t the holiday gift-giving season. Totaling $50.27 billion, e-commerce sales are up 15.4 percent for the first quarter 2012, over the same quarter in 2011.
Some estimates push the total spending numbers for this year’s first quarter as high as $53 billion depending upon which retail items one tracks. In the past, many resources including the U.S. Commerce Department’s monitoring of online retail did not include goods such as gasoline or groceries that traditionally consumers were not buying online.
But buying patterns are clearly changing across all segments of sales as evidenced by the numbers reported by Peapod LLC and other online grocers. Peapod offers limited service in portions of roughly a dozen U.S. states, yet in 2011, the company saw nearly $480 million in online sales. Yes, people are even buying milk, lettuce, and hamburger meat over the Internet.
Internationally, online shopping follows similar patterns from one country to another, with a few slight deviations. If you assumed that Americans are the most active online shoppers, you will be surprised to learn that consumers in seven other countries out-shop us, with the highest percentages of online shopping occurring in Germany, the United Kingdom, Japan, and those shop-till-you-drop South Koreans, who outpace everyone. [Read more…]
