In the bleakness of the current U.S. recession, a bit of good news about online retail from ComScore. Online retail sales were up 2% in January compared to a year ago. However, the ComScore report also mentioned that twice as many people think the economy will get worse over the next 3 months and three-quarters polled are cutting back on their spending, which isn’t a good sign for retailers. Traditional retailers took a pretty big hit in January, with sales declining between 6% and 14% in categories like cars, electronics, furniture, and apparel.

These numbers reinforce the need to focus more resources into online retail as more people shop on the Internet as opposed to going out to the malls and stores. People are looking to save money anyway they can, so they are visiting coupon sites more than ever! This is excellent news for the affiliate marketing community.

Some of the categories losing steam this year already are luxury good, event tickets, toys, and office supplies. Looking for ways to save money, consumers have been flocking to coupon websites, which is great for the affiliate marketing industry. Coupon code sites drive a tremendous amount of traffic for online retailers, and this trend should only increase throughout the year. So online retailers should look to push out more coupons and deals through their affiliates to take advantage of the changing tides.