Weekly Online Holiday Retail Sales Pass $6.2 Billion

This past week, ended December 18, online holiday sales finally blew past the $6 million mark and surged to $6.28 billion, led by four individual days surpassing $1 billion in sales, according to comScore, a company that tracks digital data. Online sales for the week increased 14 percent versus the same period of the prior year. Several times this year weekly online sales were flirting with the $6 billion mark.

The final online shopping weekend before Christmas, where shipping was guaranteed, reached $1.04 billion to rank as the second heaviest weekend of online spending on record.

“With only a few more days until Christmas, the preponderance of Americans’ late season holiday shopping will shift to brick-and-mortar retail, although the procrastinators among us will still be able to take advantage of expedited shipping and buy online up to and including the day before Christmas Eve with the guarantee of having their gifts delivered in time for the holiday,” said Gian Fulgoni, comScore chairman. “In total, we will see another $5 or $6 billion in e-commerce spending over the remainder of December to finish off what has clearly been an outstanding season for online retailers.”

Holiday season retail e-commerce spending for the first 48 days of the November – December 2011 holiday season (ended December 18), has increased 15 percent to $31.97 billion, the Reston, Va.-based reports.  Overall holiday online retail spending in 2011 is already approaching the 2010 online holiday season total of $32.6 billion with nearly two weeks left in the season.

For the 2011 holiday season-to-date, 10 days have surpassed $1 billion in online retail sales.

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Weekly Holiday Internet Retail Sales Up 16%

The most recent week for holiday Internet sales, ended Dec. 25, saw a 16 percent increase in spending, year-over-year, to $2.8 billion, according to comScore, a company that measures digital data and provides digital business analytics.

The figure is an expected steep drop from the record-breaking $6.28 billion for the prior week, ended December 18, the last week where delivery of online orders could be guaranteed.

Retail e-commerce spending for the first 56 days of the November – December 2011 holiday season reached a record $35.3 billion, marking a 15-percent increase versus the corresponding days last year. This increase has been consistent throughout the holiday season.

“Holiday e-commerce spending has remained strong throughout the season,” said comScore chairman Gian Fulgoni. “We can now say with certainty that the $1.25 billion spent on Cyber Monday will rank it as the heaviest online spending day of the season for the second consecutive year, but we should also note that it was accompanied by nine other billion dollar spending days this year.”

The Reston, Va.-based company noted that over the past several years there has been a dramatic increase in Christmas Day purchases of digital content and subscriptions, a retail category that includes digital downloads of music, TV, movies, e-books and apps. As many consumers get new smartphones, tablets, e-readers and digital content gift certificates for Christmas, they spend Christmas Day loading up their devices with new content.

On an average day during the 2011 holiday season to date, digital content and subscriptions accounted for 2.8 percent of retail e-commerce sales, but on Christmas Day the category accounted for more than 20 percent of sales. Consistent with past years, comScore expects sales for this category of products to remain elevated throughout the entire week following Christmas Day.

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