Monday’s online volume soars 37% over last year
The real start to online Christmas shopping took place yesterday, says comScore Networks Inc. While the Friday after Thanksgiving is the traditional kick-off of the holiday shopping period, online shopping typically begins the following Monday, when shoppers are back to work and able to access shopping sites with high-speed access. This year was no different. Monday’s online retail shopping volume reached $231 million, 37% higher than last year’s Monday after Thanksgiving, comScore reports.
BizRate.com Inc. reported even higher online sales for Monday, $366.2 million, up 39% compared to the same day last week.
Each day of Thanksgiving weekend experienced impressive gains in online shopping vs. a year ago, comScore reports. ComScore reports the following retail sales (excluding travel) for each day:
Thanksgiving: $95.5 million, up 55% over last year
Friday: $150.9 million, up 40%
Saturday: $154.1 million, up 67%
Sunday: $154.3 million, up 115%
Monday: $231.5 million, up 37%.
ComScore also reported that total online retail spending for last week, ending with Friday, reached $912 million, 25% higher than last year’s Thanksgiving week.
Leading growth categories Thanksgiving week were toys, up 69%, and home and garden, up 114%.
ComScore also reported that online travel sales were up strongly, with consumers booking $575 million in travel purchases, up 76% over Thanksgiving week last year.
ComScore bases its sales figures on monitoring the behavior of a cross-section of 1.5 million Internet users who have given comScore such permission to do so.
BizRate bases its numbers on post-shopping surveys of customers at 2,000 retail web sites which have contracted with BizRate to conduct customer satisfaction surveys. It rounds out its projections with publicly available data from sites where it does not have contracts.
Neither researcher’s figures include travel sales. ComScore includes event tickets, which BizRate excludes.
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