Online Holiday Spending Surpasses $21 Billion
RESTON, Va. -- Online holiday spending surpassed $21 billion the first 32 days in this holiday shopping season, according to a comScore report. That’s 14% higher than the period last year and a 5% gain in spending per buyer.
For that period, which includes Cyber Monday, $21.4 billion was spent online. The total was led by a record $1.46 billion on Cyber Monday. Growth rates softened considerably in its wake and through the following weekend.
"While Cyber Monday was a high point for holiday ecommerce spending and Cyber Week saw several strong spending days, there was a clear softening in the growth rate during the back half of the week," said Gian Fulgoni, comScore chairman. "It is likely that, to some extent, holiday spending was pulled forward to the Thanksgiving-Black Friday period given the heightened promotional activity around that time. And some of the softening is a natural post-Cyber Monday lull that we often experience -- an effect that may be somewhat more pronounced this year given the additional shopping days between Thanksgiving and Christmas. However, as the urgency to finish one's holiday shopping increases, we expect to see growth rates pick up again in the next couple of weeks before Christmas."
An analysis of holiday spending demonstrates how the various components are contributing to the current 14% growth rate. Thus far, spending growth is being driven both by an increase in the number of buyers (up 9% to 128.7 million) and the average spending per buyer (up 5% to $165.90). The increase in spending per buyer comes mostly from an increase in the number of transactions (up 4% to 2.19 per buyer) as opposed to the amount spent per transaction (up only 1% to $75.90).
Published by The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.
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