Cantor Fitzgerald: Online Sales Off To 'Solid Start,' Amazon and eBay 'Big Beneficiaries'

Youssef Squali of Cantor Fitzgerald commented in a note on Monday that several data points he observed over the weekend indicate a healthy trend for the e-commerce, which if sustained, could imply upside to Street expectations. According to Squali, a few notable events occurred over the Holiday shopping weekend. First, e-commerce sales have shown “healthy” 20 percent plus growth rates for Thanksgiving Day, Black Friday and Cyber Saturday compared to the same time period a year ago. As such, the analyst notes that mobile commerce continues to gain share away from traditional brick and mortar.

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as well as are “big beneficiaries” of the growing ecommerce trend while at the same time, omnichannel retailers are growing “nicely” online, but not offline. In fact, Squali states that Amazon saw “very robust” year over year growth rates in the first days of the Holiday shopping season as the company rolled out its Cyber Monday deals early, resulting in “strong traction.” On the other hand, eBay is “holding its own” so far, according to Squali. The analyst adds that the company eBay is tracking to the mid-teens growth, ahead of Street expectations for the company. The analyst adds that the next few days will determine if mobile trends are sustainable or simply the result of an early promotion-induced shopping period.