E-retailing growth doesn’t let up in January and February, comScore reports

The beginning of the economic recovery and the further maturing of the Internet as a sales channel are fueling strong growth in e-retail sales, say the latest numbers from comScore Networks Inc. Online retail sales in January and February were up 32.5% vs. a year earlier to $6.59 billion from $4.98 billion.

And the trend has continued into March. For the week ending March 10, e-retail sales totaled $760.7 million, up 24% from the prior year’s $612.5 million. “These numbers reflect a dramatic increase in consumer confidence and sophistication in the using the Internet,” says Dan Hess, comScore vice president. “They also reflect improvements in retailer’s efforts to build better online and offline opportunities for consumers to shop.”

Another strong indicator of both consumers’ willingness to buy online and the start of an economic recovery comes from travel spending online. Online travel buying in January and February was up 80% over year earlier spending: $4.47 billion this year vs. $2.48 billion last year. January’s $2.3 billion in travel spending, double last year’s rate, represented a record month; the week ending March 3 also set a record at $611.7 million, Hess reports. The weekly record was 97% over the comparable week a year earlier.

ComScore derives its numbers by tracking the online behavior of a subset of 1.5 million consumers who have given comScore permission to observe their Internet activity.