Online Holiday Sales up 3 Percent Over 2008

Reston, VA, Dec. 4, 2009--ComScore reported that online holiday sales to date were $12.26 billion, 3 percent increase versus the corresponding days last year.

Cyber Monday reached $887 million in online spending, up 5 percent versus year ago, and matching the heaviest online spending day on record, December 9, 2008.

“We’ve seen an encouraging start to the online holiday shopping season and it would appear that retailers’ aggressive and early marketing efforts have so far succeeded in persuading consumers to open their wallets online,” said comScore chairman Gian Fulgoni.

Cyber Monday’s 5-percent growth in sales versus year ago was driven primarily by an increase in the number of buyers, reflecting consumers' increasing familiarity and comfort with online buying, while average spending per buyer was down slightly, presumably a result of economic constraints. Specifically, the number of online buyers grew 6 percent to 8.7 million, while the average dollars spent per buyer declined 2 percent to $102.19.

On Cyber Monday this year, more than half of dollars spent online at U.S. Web sites originated from work computers (52.7 percent), representing a gain of 2.3 percentage points from last year. Buying from home comprised the majority of the remaining share (41.6 percent) while buying from international locations accounted for 5.8 percent.