subject: US online holiday sales rise 15% [print this page] US online holiday sales rise 15% US online holiday sales rise 15%
US online holiday sales rise 15%
Lured by significant online deals, consumers spent $36.4 billion online this holiday season, according to the latest survey report released Wednesday by MasterCard Advisors SpendingPulse, which tracks consumer spending patterns by analyzing sales of 72,000 retailers.
This is 15.4 percent increase, compared to last year.
Michael McNamara, vice president at MasterCard Advisors SpendingPulse, said, "Today, e-commerce accounts for a much larger share of overall retail sales compared to a few years ago. And during this holiday season, it registered double-digit growth for 6 out of 7 weeks."
While department store online sales rose 11 percent, electronics-store sales jumped 12.2 percent. Also, jewelry retailers recorded a 4.5 percent jump in sales.
John Squire, chief strategy officer at IBM Coremetrics, was quoted by The Wall Street Journal as saying, "The Internet sales numbers have been strong throughout the season. "It is surprising how well department stores and jewelers are doing this late in the season."
Analyzing the gains
The survey report, covering period from Oct. 31 to Dec. 24, highlights that consumers spent the most on apparels, compared to other e-commerce categories, thus signifying that Americans were most comfortable buying clothes online.
Better sales recorded in 2010
Not only the different categories witnessed an increase, the daily online sales also surpassed $1 billion six times in 2010, compared to three times a year earlier, the report states.
The sales were highest on Nov. 30, when total online sales totaled to $1.16 billion. On Cyber Monday, (the Monday after Thanksgiving), the sales amounted to $999.3 million, up 25.3 percent compared to same period last year.
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