Alright, so nobody is actually projecting a gloomy Christmas for babies.  Things are bad, but not that bad.  Can you imagine?  I just wanted an excuse to post this photo of my girl Daisy’s recent “Santa Tantrum”.

Ecommerce, however, is truly suffering as a result of the current economy.  eMarketer released their latest numbers, revising their online sales growth projections for the critical holiday shopping season to cut anticipated growth in half. 

That’s not nearly as gloomy as the data recently released by Comscore which reported a year-over-year decline of 4% for the same period in November.  That represents the very first time that ecommerce sales declined over the same period for a previous year. 

If there’s a brighter side, and there usually is, it is that the slowdown means deeper discounts might be available online.  My inbox has already filled with “pre-Black Friday Sale” emails.  I’ve seen some great prices.  Maybe, if sale prices are good enough, the overall volume of commerce conducted over this critical period can somewhat recover.  But, profits by etailers are bound to be down either way, and this whole thing is sure to have significant impact on the online marketing world.