Posted by Cristina Lucero, Research Associate
Online retail spending has seen a big year-over-year jump this holiday season to date. According to comScore, retail e-commerce spending for the first 34 days of the November/December 2011 holiday season saw a 15% increase to $18.7 billion versus the corresponding days last year. This year-over-year increase was driven by two billion-dollar days, including Cyber Monday ($1.25 billion).
Other findings from comScore include:
- The strongest overall spending gains have been driven by the mid-income segment (households earning $50,000–$99,999) at 19%
- Lower-income households (Under $50,000) are seeing a more modest increase of 9%
- Spending among affluent households ($100,000 and higher) is growing at a rate of 16%
- The majority of this year’s gains have come from an increase in spending per buyer. While the number of overall buyers has increased just 3%, dollars per buyer has increased 12%
- According to comScore chairman Gian Fulgoni, “The appeal of lower prices that can be found on the Internet is undoubtedly a driver of the acceleration of the shift from in-store buying to e-commerce that we are witnessing among all income segments this season.” Additionally, more than half of all online holiday shopping transactions have included free shipping—during the week of Thanksgiving, 64.4% of all online transactions included free shipping.
