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Gift-giving goes digital
By Renay San Miguel
(CNN) -- Thanks to Christmas 2002, more microprocessors and memory will be working their digital magic in consumers' homes. But they won't be in computers. They'll likely be in consumer electronics and children's toys. In fact, the generation that's growing up with the Internet seems to be matching Mom and Dad techno-toy for techno-toy this holiday season. How do I know this? By taking a quick trip to shopping centers over Thanksgiving weekend and by the e-mails that are flooding my work in-box from public relations specialists representing consumer electronics companies. The malls are offering up discounts and deals on grown-up gadgets such as MP3 players, digital cameras, plasma TVs, next-generation cell phones. Meanwhile, the PR specialists, who no doubt smell blood, are pushing similar products in e-mail story pitches. If I had a dollar for every time I've received a PR e-mail that began, "If you're looking for a good high-tech Christmas gift segment ...," I could start my own consumer electronics company. But then I'd probably have to hire a PR firm, thereby continuing the feeding cycle that is Corporate America, techno-style. The most telling visit to a retail center was my trip to a nationally known toy chain, where technology-flavored products were fairly zipping across the clerks' price scanners. Elmo can't do his chicken dance without some electronics coursing through his furry limbs, but there were also lots of hand-held games using computer chips and memory storage stocked on the store's shelves. Then there was the video game section, with PlayStation 2s, xBoxes and GameCubes all vying for a child's attention.
It's not just happening in the real world. E-commerce is roaring back to life this Christmas. Virginia-based comScore Networks, which uses technology to measure the online buying habits of consumers, reports that "Black Monday," as comScore calls the first Monday after Thanksgiving, saw $380 million worth of sales online, a 49 percent jump over last year. For the week ending Thanksgiving online, toy sales were up 69 percent. But the big category so far is home and garden products, with a 114 percent jump, according to comScore. Apparel and accessories saw a 20 percent increase in online sales over the same week in 2001, comScore said. Consumer electronics shot up 35 percent, it said. Computer sales, however, are not sharing in the yuletide joy. According to comScore, computer hardware and software sales online were flat for the week ending November 29. It's no wonder that the toy store I visited over the Thanksgiving weekend was packed with harried parents and their acquisitive offspring. Children ages 2 to 17 made up 67 percent of those Internet users who did some shopping online in October, reports comScore. It's true that most youths can't get access to a credit card, but there are other ways for them to spend money online, either through a PayPal account, online debit cards and e-gift certificates. And comScore also reports that kids are doing their own shopping research online ("Windows" shopping?), then dragging their parents to real-world toy stores with wish lists in hand. Sociologists of the 1960's and 1970's spent a lot of time talking about the so-called "nuclear family." Forget that. Mom, Dad, Junior and Sis have gone digital, and Christmas 2002 is the most recent proof.
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