Online Shopping Sales: $6 Billion Spent In Week After Thanksgiving

NEW YORK -- U.S. shoppers are still spending heavily online after a record-busting "Cyber Monday," research firm comScore Inc. said Sunday.

The firm, which tracks Web use, found shoppers spent nearly $6 billion online on Monday through Friday last week, a record.

On Cyber Monday itself, sales reached $1.25 billion, the biggest online shopping day in history. Online sales on Tuesday and Wednesday also broke $1 billion.

Cyber Monday sales topped $1 billion for the first time last year.

ComScore says online sales are up 15 percent to $18.7 billion in November and the first two days of December, compared with the same period last year.

The holiday shopping season can make up to 40 percent of retailers' annual revenue. This year's holiday shopping has risen with help from discounting and promotions.

Free shipping also appears to be a big draw, applying to 63 percent of sales, up from 52 percent a year ago.

"Consumers have come to expect free shipping during the holiday promotion periods, and retailers, in turn, have realized that they must offer this incentive," said comScore chairman Gian Fulgoni in a statement.

Online shopping accounts for between 8 and 10 percent of overall holiday spending, by various estimates. ComScore's spending figures exclude travel, auctions and large corporate purchases.

Spending on items including clothing, general merchandise, toys and electronics and in department stores, rose 4.7 percent to $125 billion in the Oct. 30 to Nov. 26 period, according to MasterCard Advisor's SpendingPulse. That includes online buying and spending in physical stores.

Comments

[bridge to somewhere]

05:37 PM on 12/05/2011

The Ark of the Covenant is in there somewhere...

[Mrald]

05:08 PM on 12/05/2011

Taxing on line purchases won't change the way I shop. I like the convenience and no hassle, no dealing with rude clerks who don't really want to be there, but it is the only job they could find.
You could not pay me to go to the mall this time of year.

[D-blings]

11:56 AM on 12/05/2011

Online purchases need to be taxed. A federal 5% sales tax on 6B would be 300 million dollars! Having a federal sales tax rather than state tax would also not burden online stores.

[cyoohoos]

12:26 PM on 12/05/2011

9-9-9. I guess he was your hero

[roger37]

06:14 PM on 12/05/2011

Just for what it's worth, Herman's 9-9-9 was IN ADDITION to state sales taxes. So, in my state it would have been 18-9-9. Strangely, Herman had never thought about that until somebody nailed him on it in a debate.

Actually, not so strange, because the Cain Train was powered by EGO, not by fact.

[aspertame2]

10:59 AM on 12/05/2011

For several years now during the holidays, but particularly in the wake of Black Friday stories of recent years, I stay away from shopping centers as much as is practical. Setting aside shopper insanity, tis also this season for mall traffic jams, attention-challenged drivers, and parking lot thefts, muggings, and robberies. Funny, but this time of year I feel much safer at my local Goodwill store than at the swankest mall.

[Brooke Horne]

10:51 AM on 12/05/2011

What's up? I'm trying to Fav some comments and it's not working? Temporary HP thing?

[weaselbasher]

11:49 AM on 12/05/2011

same problem here...

[cyoohoos]

12:26 PM on 12/05/2011

Blog wide problem

[MarieB]

10:46 AM on 12/05/2011

I did a lot of my shopping online this year. No crowds, convenience, delivered to your door and most are offering free shipping. How can you beat that?

[MarieB]

10:53 AM on 12/05/2011

Although I did shop on Small Business Saturday making purchases from my local community shops.

[aspertame2]

11:04 AM on 12/05/2011

That trend is one that I hope takes off, although I'm also interested in where the stuff is from, not just the vendors. Also it matters where the parts are sourced, not just assembled...it's a pretty steep challenge for the average shopper, to find something that is really even mostly American-made. I can see where a lot of businesses are clamoring to benefit from that "buy American" sentiment even as the only thing about the product that's American is the U.S. importer.

[Matt12]

10:34 AM on 12/05/2011

Wow!! So many potential CDOs in the making....

[crankyCrackPot]

10:26 AM on 12/05/2011

This time of year I need to change my routes to avoid retail congestion.
Why on earth isn't everybody doing this?

[pig]

10:24 AM on 12/05/2011

here comes the TAX.TAX.TAX.TAX.TAX.TAX.TAX. on online purchase's

[FreedToChoose]

10:28 AM on 12/05/2011

As it should, states deserve sales tax revenues from goods bought and or delivered within their borders. To avoid this, online retailers need to declare themselves a religion, which many people already feel Amazon is... ;-)

[cyoohoos]

12:30 PM on 12/05/2011

States don't DESERVE anything. Let us start there. And it is the inability of the states to work together to define reasonable laws to tax these good that causes these goods to be tax free. If you cannot define the law it cannot be enforced. If these states would just adopt the streamlined sales tax this problem would go away. They won't, and therefore the COURTS decided that they get nothing.

[Erdgeist]

02:22 PM on 12/05/2011

The best way to avoid taxes is not to have a job and don't spend. I encourage all my Republican friends who hate taxes to build a little log cabin in Alaska then try to survive off the land.

[jws2346]

09:24 AM on 12/05/2011

It seems to me that this on line shopping phenomena may be the wave of the future? As it stands at the moment with all the violence (all the shootings, pepper spraying, and injured because of unruly mobs on black Friday) and the inconvenience of physically going to brick and mortar stores (I live in Seattle, WA and the downtown area seems to be in an uproar because of the via duct replacement) I have been using the on line shopping feature for many years. (I'm 50% service connected disabled and it's more convenient for me to shop from home). I'll admit at first it was taking a chance of receiving bonifide goods (and then getting any refund if the product was bad or bogus), but that has pretty much changed because there have been some very big retail stores affiliated with on line shopping.

[Pretrib]

09:03 AM on 12/05/2011

Other pluses...you don't get pepper sprayed while shopping at the keyboard in the safety of your own home. You don't crsuhed and trampled on by the mob. Additionally, criminals don't come to you in the parking lot and shoot you for your packages. I was done with all my shopping by Cyber Monday. Got the best prices available with just a few keystrokes. All packages ordered online were shipped to my home within a week. All done.

[Pretrib]

08:53 AM on 12/05/2011

Message to OWS and libs....market forces, competition, and capitalism works when left alone. Will there be more government regulations for online shopping now to limit this great success? We see how much the left hates capitalism and business success. Amazon has already left some markets (California had some recent issues) because of the onerous tax policy of the left.

[Luis Soto]

08:59 AM on 12/05/2011

You are nuts. Online shopping and other white collar pc new jobs for machines and blue collar jobs for bots is what causes unemployment. Automated depots with bots picking up things will soon mean the end of millions of jobs in retail. Capitalism and mechanism is merely the evolution and competence of machines and men, and its superorganisms company-mothers and governments. The end is obvious: corporations care for nothing but their machines and at the end will indeed come around to get you out of job and consume you with a drone. So stop insulting the only people who still has something on their brains, beyond memorized cues and cathecisms
www.economicstruth.com

[Pretrib]

09:23 AM on 12/05/2011

Innovation opens up new job markets. Stop trying to limit progress. My son just got a great job at Amazon because of creative thinkers. Quit trying to put a wet blanket on our economy.

[Edbeason]

10:56 AM on 12/05/2011

There are some things that machines will never be able to accomplish effectively enough. So, humans will continue to work in conjunction with them and provide that human touch on whatever level. Corporations will try to go as far as they can though, because machines won't need sick days, medical insurance, drug intervention, stern admonishing, dental appointments, maternity leave, continuing education, bonuses, team meetings, retreats, etc. However, in my opinion humans will still be needed for the foreseeable future.

[stillable2think]

08:48 AM on 12/05/2011

Buyblue.org is a good place to find out where your $$ go after your purchase. Vote with your spending on what kind of country you want to live in.

[Sundae Driver]

07:30 AM on 12/05/2011

To everyone but Republicans, this is a positive sign that our economy is slowly but surely recovering. To Republicans it means that their 2012 chances grow slimmer and slimmer as we improve--so, of course, they must trash it. Who would expect anything else from the GOP?

[scahill]

07:01 AM on 12/05/2011

One of the good things I find with on-line is they usually have the product I want in stock, unlike the stores. Best Buy, HH Gregg, etc, never, ever seem to have what I want so one of their employees (who this week is an expert on TVs but last week was an expert on small applicances) will try to sell me something I don't want along with hard sell for the "Geek Squad" crap. No thanks, I will buy on-line.