Online sales up 9% in holiday season: comScore

In the holiday period between November 1- December 9, 2013, research company comScore noted e-commerce retail spending from desktop computers rose 9 percent (on y-o-y basis), valuing $31.5 billion. The company stated that Thanksgiving Day falls six days later this year leading to more heavy spending days to fall in the year ago period, thereby diluting growth rates at this point. It also noted that the increase was 25 percent when applying the alternate comparison of the 4-week period preceding Thanksgiving.

Desktop online spending on Green Monday was up 10 percent (on y-o-y basis), the third heaviest online spending day of the holiday season-to-date.

The Cyber Week which starts with Cyber Monday, saw impressive 24 percent increase (on y-o-y basis) in desktop online spending, to around $8 billion. Sales on the Saturday and Sunday following Cyber Monday rose almost 71 percent. The research firm noted that Cyber Week fell just $16 million shy on December 6, of boasting five billion dollar days during the work week. For the period from Thanksgiving Day through Cyber Week, online buying from desktop computers increased a very strong 24 percent.

The company noted online buying from Thanksgiving ‘has been very strong and indicates that e-commerce is on track to meet expectations’.