Holiday E-Commerce Sales Top $42 Billion
U.S. consumers set an e-commerce record, spending $42.28 billion online in November and December, according to comScore. Sales online were up 13.7 percent from $37.17 billion spent during the 2011 holiday shopping season, and exceeded the 3.1 percent increase for comparable in-store sales year over year for the same period reported by ICSC. ComScore initially predicted online holiday spending would rise to $43.4 billion, but sales were essentially on pace with last year’s growth rate, says chairman Gian Fulgoni. “While November started out at a very healthy 16 percent growth rate through the promotional period of Thanksgiving, Black Friday and Cyber Monday, consumers almost immediately pulled back on spending, apparently due to concerns over the looming fiscal cliff and what that might mean for their household budgets in 2013,” he notes. Nevertheless, the 2012 holiday shopping season generated 12 of days of online spending that surpassed $1 billion, up from 10 days in 2011. Cyber Monday was the biggest day for e-commerce, generating a record $1.465 billion, up 17 percent from last year.
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Internet Retailer (01/03/13) Dusto, Amy