Online Retail Sales to Increase 11 Percent for Holiday 2010
Online metrics firm comScore reported...Online metrics firm comScore reported that for the first 21 days of the 2010 Christmas holiday shopping period, retail e-commerce spending in the U.S. rose 13 percent to $9 billion. The company began tracking online holiday spending for the 2010 season on November 1.
Given the strong start to online retail spending for Christmas season 2010, comScore increased its outlook to 11 percent growth for the November and December period from an earlier estimate of 7%.
“The beginning of the online holiday shopping season has gotten off to an extremely positive start, outperforming our earlier expectations,” said comScore chairman, Gian Fulgoni.
“Despite continued high unemployment rates and other economic concerns, consumers seem to be more willing to open up their wallets this holiday season than last. While this early spending surge reflects, in part, heavy promotional activity on the part of retailers occurring earlier this season, it is nevertheless a very encouraging sign.”
Now comScore estimates total online retail spending, excluding travel and auctions, to be about $32.4 billion for November and December. The 11 percent improvement from 2009 also represents a stronger growth rate from the 4 percent registered one year ago. For the first 10 months of 2010, comScore measured online retail sales at $109.9 billion, representing a 9 percent increase.
“After a year in which we already saw growth rates return to solid positive territory, the recent strength in holiday spending has led us to raise our official forecast to 11 percent from the 7 to 9 percent we were initially expecting,” added Fulgoni. “We are seeing online spending surpass the totals we saw in 2007 prior to the recession and expect sales this holiday season to be the highest on record with more than $32 billion being spent during the November and December period.”
By: Jeff Miller
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