Just as the U.S. holiday shopping season kicks off, Verizon's Enterprise Solutions (NYSE: VZ) unit has introduced the Verizon Retail Index, a new tool to give members of the retail, shipping and transportation industries another point of view about online consumer habits.
Beginning on Nov. 28, Verizon Retail Index will measure average daily traffic and peak volumes on Verizon's IP network through the end of the year.
Verizon said that its Retail Index is based on data traffic related to consumer shopping activity over the service provider's networks during a 24-hour period. By using historical network data, Verizon has assigned a baseline value of 100 to represent the average daily traffic rate.
Verizon will also look at select cloud data and provide the data with insight from the service provider's retail experts. Retailers would be able to look at the Retail Index daily with information presented on a graph that would provide an at-a-glance view of the 2014 online holiday shopping season.
"The Verizon Retail Index offers decision makers and influencers in the retail, shipping and transportation industries a fresh point of view about online consumer habits," said Michele Dupre, vice president of retail and hospitality at Verizon Enterprise Solutions, in a release. "As more people go online to comparison shop and take advantage of Web promotions such as free shipping, in-store trials, discounts and loyalty programs over the holidays, it should be insightful to see when that activity is occurring and to what extent."
During the 2013 shopping season, Verizon said that between the five-day period from Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday, there were three notable trends: retailers launched online promotions at least three weeks in advance of the Thanksgiving holiday shopping weekend; online shopping on Thanksgiving Day saw peak volumes after 6 p.m. Eastern time; and some retailers saw peak volumes between midnight and 2 a.m. Eastern time on Cyber Monday.
For more:
- see the release
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