Getting Gifts Online

Snow on the east coast left many shoppers homebound this weekend, the last weekend before Christmas. But even for those in dryer parts of the country, who wants to deal with the mall’s thundering hoards?

Fewer and fewer, apparently, reports NPR. But the trend isn’t sinking retailers. In fact, it’s helping another part of their business grow: the online segment. While brick and mortar sales have stayed steady over last year, online sales are growing by as much as 7 percent by some estimates.

All this success for e-commerce has no doubt been fueled by all the offers of free shipping, big online discounts and exclusives and, says NPR, a greater acceptance among shoppers of online retailing. JC Penney and Macy’s, just to name a couple, are even offering free express shipping for the procrastinators among us — which gets down to our own central theory of why online shopping is doing so well: sheer laziness.

Photo courtesy GarethJMSaunders via Flickr.