For Web sites, a reason to give thanks

After the plate of turkey is cleared and the football games are over this Thanksgiving, many Americans will turn their attention to the Internet.

The national holiday celebrating friendship between Pilgrims and Indians, and the eve of the traditional start of the holiday shopping season, is also one of the top traffic days for retail Web sites each year.

“Some say that’s their biggest [sales] day,” said Patti Freeman Evans, senior retail industry analyst at Jupiter Research, an Internet research company. “Realistically, what people are doing is they are researching and trying to figure out and plan their attack for the rest of the weekend.”

More shoppers are going online to price shop and research their decisions before going into bricks-and-mortar stores to make purchases. But they are also using the Internet to research where to find a trendy toy, such as TMX Elmo, or to find “door-buster” deals ahead of time. And after the holidays, they are going online to sell unwanted gifts and trade gift cards.

Jupiter estimates that the Internet influences 30 percent of all retail purchases — up from 22 percent three years ago. If the average person spends $791 on holiday purchases this year, as the National Retail Federation estimates, about $237 of that will be influenced by the Internet.

Jupiter expects that figure to increase to 45 percent by 2010.

A recent NRF study showed the Internet has even more influence. Nearly 89 percent of respondents said they regularly or occasionally research a product online before buying it in a store.

“Retailers’ ongoing efforts to make their stores and Web sites work hand in hand will create more sales and happier customers,” said Scott Silverman, executive director of Shop.org, the online retail division of the NRF.

Some of the Web sites visited Thanksgiving Day — or well before the holiday — list “Black Friday” specials ahead of publication. Black Friday, the day retailers’ books traditionally went from red to black, typically has some of the best deals of the season. The advanced printing allows die-hard shoppers plenty of time to firm up their plans for the official start of the holiday shopping season.

Sites such as BlackFriday.gottadeal.com, BFAds.net and BlackFriday.info already have listed deals for Wal-Mart, Best Buy and Toys “R” Us, among others.

“The release date of Black Friday ads is usually Wednesday. Most people don’t have a whole lot of time to analyze the ads,” said Michael Brim, the San Jose, Calif., founder of BFAds.net. “The site basically provides people more preparation time.”

The site, which officially went online in 2004, boasted nearly 15 million visitors per day during Thanksgiving week last year, Mr. Brim said.

Shoppers also are turning to the Internet to simply price shop.

Shoppers have traditional sites, such as Amazon.com and EBay.com, to new sites designed specifically for price shoppers, such as Frucall.com, SortPrice.com and PriceGrabber.com to search price, brand, make, model, store availability or quantity.

“I hate shopping — driving around, the crowds and all the lines and everything,” Kamran Pourzanjani said of why he founded PriceGrabber. “This is one way to shop a lot faster and more effectively. It’s all the information that consumers need to make the right choices.”

Retailers stand to benefit when the customer is more informed. Shoppers who know what they’re looking for don’t need to rely on employees for help, and customers who order online and pick up an item in the store tend to buy something else during pickup, Mrs. Freeman Evans said.

“It is having a huge impact in allowing consumers to be more informed about the features and benefits of the products — what stores they’re at, which brands and styles are out there and the price,” she said.

New Web site Frucall.com will do the online searching for shoppers even when they’re still at the store. Shoppers call 888/Do-Frucall and punch in the product’s bar code to get a short listing of how much the product is at other retailers’ Web sites. The call is free, but shoppers will hear a short advertisement. Chief Executive Officer Behzad Nadji said the line receives about 10,000 calls per day.

The industry still faces some hurdles to capturing all of this online sales potential.

For the most part, retailers’ online and brick-and-mortar stores don’t have cross incentives. In-store employees don’t make commission by sending shoppers online, and the Web site doesn’t tell shoppers to walk into the stores, Mrs. Freeman Evans said.

“There are a lot of inhibitors to making the cultural and systemic changes,” she said. “It’s not easy and it’s going to take a long time, but they are marching down that path.”