ComScore (http://www.comscore.com), a company that measures the digital world, says holiday season retail e-commerce spending for the first 47 days of the November-December 2010 holiday season is looking good, thanks, in part, to the iPad and laptops.
For the holiday season-to-date, US$27.46 billion has been spent online, marking a 12% increase versus the corresponding days last year. The most recent week (week ending Dec. 17) reached $5.15 billion in spending, an increase of 14%versus the corresponding week last year, with four individual days surpassing $900 million, led by Green Monday (Monday, Dec. 13) with $954 million and Free Shipping Day (Friday, Dec. 17) with $942 million. Free Shipping Day achieved a 61% increase versus the corresponding shopping day last year, highlighting the appeal and success of the promotion in which more than 1,500 merchants offered free shipping.
Computer hardware ranks as the top growing category for the holiday season to date with a 25% increase versus last year. Purchases of handheld devices (such as Apple iPads and e-readers) and laptop computers drove much of the growth.
Attractive pricing on flat panel TVs continues to drive growth in consumer electronics, which grew 22% to rank as the second fastest-growing category. Books and magazines (up 21%), computer software excluding games (up 16 %) and toys (up 15%) rounded out the top five gaining categories.