Holiday Online Shopping Up 24 Pct to $8.8 Bln
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Spending by Americans shopping online  during this year's holiday season rose 24 percent to $8.8  billion, with sharp gains in purchases of clothing and  entertainment, Web company VeriSign Inc. said on Thursday.
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Online holiday shopping rose 25 percent in 2004 to 23.2 billion dollars, a survey showed.
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Tempted by lower prices and a wide selection of goods, U.S. shoppers clamored to the Web this holiday season, spending $23.2 billion, or 25 percent more than in the previous year, according to a survey released this week.
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Online holiday spending for the first two days of this week increased 29% over the same two last year, according to comScore Inc.
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DISPLAY WINDOWS for holiday shoppers can be found more and more on 17-inch computer screens. The number of Americans who regularly use the Internet for shopping rose dramatically this year, with one market
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Online retailers had a better-than-expected start to the holiday season, according to one Internet research firm that tracks online sales.
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Last-minute shoppers saved the Christmas season for retailers with a surge of spending last week. Sales were up 11.6 percent for the week compared with last year, according to ShopperTrak.
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The e-tailer has another big holiday season.
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By Lisa Baertlein and Emily Chasan SAN FRANCISCO/NEW YORK  - U.S. online shoppers, who set spending and traffic records on Thanksgiving Day and the "Black Friday" that followed, were expected to break new ground again as they returned to work on what some are calling "Blue Monday."
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U.S. consumer Web spending rose 30 percent on the Monday after Thanksgiving, which is traditionally seen as the start of the online holiday shopping season, comScore Networks said on Wednesday.
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Online consumers in the United States  spent $8.8 billion, excluding travel purchases, in November, a  19 percent jump over the $7.4 billion spent online a year  earlier, a report released on Monday said.
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U.S. buyers shopped aggressively online on Monday and Tuesday of this week, spending significantly more than they did on the comparable days last year, according to comScore.Online retail spending hit $700 million on Monday, up 33 percent from last year, and $670 million on Tuesday, up 25 percent, the Web-monitoring company said Thursday.During the first 48 days of the holiday shopping season -- Nov. 1 to Dec. 18 -- U.S. shoppers have spent almost $25 billion in online retail purchases, up 19 percent from the same period last year, according to comScore.As Christmas day approaches, the intensity of online shopping will ease up, although late-shipping deals, in-store pickup options and price reductions should keep growth rates strong in the remainder of the holiday season, comScore said.The company expects online spending during the holidays to reach $29.5 billion, which would represent a 20 percent increase over the 2006 season.Meanwhile, Nielsen Online said Wednesday that a majority of online shoppers it surveyed reported being either &quot;very satisfied&quot; or &quot;somewhat satisfied&quot; with the customer support they received from online shopping Web sites.Nielsen Online&#39;s survey found that of the 46 percent of respondents who had posted or planned to post reviews about their online shopping experience, 88 percent said those reviews were, or would be, positive.Netflix topped the survey&#39;s customer satisfaction list, having been rated &quot;very satisfied&quot; by 90.3 percent of respondents, and was followed by comparison-shopping site NexTag.com (87 percent), giant e-tailer Amazon.com (86.6 percent), Yahoo Shopping (84.3 percent) and Kohls.com (84.1 percent). Rounding out the top 10 were Barnesandnoble.com, HomeDepot.com, Circuitcity.com, eBay.com, and JCPenney.com.On the other end of the spectrum, sites that in recent days have been flagged for buckling under the strong holiday-season traffic include Mastercard.com and Macys.com.Macys.com&#39;s home page faced slowdowns throughout Tuesday, taking, at its worst, about 38 seconds to load, compared with the usual 2 seconds, according to Web site uptime and availability tracker Gomez.Apparently, while experiencing availability problems, Macys.com has been serving up a page telling shoppers that the site is crowded and that they have to wait until traffic decreases in order to be let in. An apparent screenshot of this page was posted by The Consumerist blog on Tuesday.Meanwhile, Mastercard.com has racked up downtime of almost five hours between Nov. 9 and Dec. 20, equivalent to uptime of 99.5 percent for that period, according to Pingdom, which also tracks Web site performance. As such, Mastercard.com has performed significantly worse than sites from competing credit-card companies like Discover, Visa, Diners Club, and American Express, all of which have had uptime above 99.9 percent during this period, Pingdom said Thursday.Neither Macy&#39;s nor MasterCard immediately responded to requests for comment.
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Profit for the Internet auction giant rose 24 percent on increased business in its core auction marketplace during the holiday months.
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U.S. holiday shoppers continue to turn to the Internet when searching for presents for family and friends, according to data released Thursday by VeriSign.
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Online retailers sold $14.8 billion worth of goods and services between Nov. 1 and Dec. 26, a 29 percent increase over the comparable period in 2003, according to statistics released this week by ComScore Networks. The increase was particularly pronounced in the week before Christmas. -The Washington Post
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Online auction house eBay goes the traditional route for the holidays.
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Those shopping at post-Christmas sales between 26 and 28 December has risen 2.1% on last year, says a retail analyst.