Online shopping season begins with deals
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After jamming malls on Friday for discounted flat-screen TVs and toys, shoppers clicked onto their computers at work Monday as retailers ushered in the start of the online shopping season with bargains and marketing hype.
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Millions of British consumers are expected to spend Christmas Day shopping online for bargains.
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By Andria Cheng  U.S. retailers like Wal-Mart Stores and Federated Department Stores are pushing Internet sales this holiday season with Web site overhauls and increased investment - and for good reason.
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The post-Thanksgiving rush to US stores has begun, with bargain hunters taking advantage of seasonal discounts.
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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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Bargain hunters who could not wait till the traditional Boxing Day sales have been busy online during Christmas Day, retailers say.
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SAN FRANCISCO -- The hunt is on. As more shoppers scour the Internet for holiday deals, they're also being stalked -- by scammers.
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Holiday Web sales are running ahead of forecast as online gift certificates helped give Internet retailers a chance to participate in U.S. consumers' last-minute shopping spree, Internet research firm comScore Networks said on Wednesday.
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The Internet holiday shopping  season got off to a hotter start this year, with "Cyber Monday"  the top day ever for online sales and the long Thanksgiving  weekend a busy time for browsing ahead of buying, both online  and in stores, researchers said on Wednesday.
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Life & style: Skip the carnage on the high street and shop the sales online with Kate Carter's picks of the best deals
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Retailers opened their doors before the sun rose yesterday, the official start of the holiday shopping season, tempting early risers with specials on a variety of items including flat-screen TVs and toys.
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The holiday shopping season ended better than it started, and most retailers are on track to meet humble sales goals. Still, many hope for an extra boost this week as consumers cash in gift cards.
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Bargain hunters tracking down sought-after toys and electronics flocked to the Web ahead of "Cyber Monday," the unofficial start of the online holiday shopping season, three Internet sites said on Saturday.
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Analysts have offered their latest judgment of the Christmas shopping season: good, but not great, although online sales set records.
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By Clint Swett, The Sacramento Bee, Calif.  Dec. 14--As the holiday shopping season heads into its final days, the appeal of hitting your keyboard for gift-getting only gets brighter.
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Fueled by Web searches for iPods, Elmos, gift cards and video game consoles, online retailers are expecting sales to increase by about 20 percent this year.
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The Internet holiday shopping season got off to a hotter start this year, with "Cyber Monday" the top day ever for online sales and the long Thanksgiving weekend a busy time for browsing ahead of buying, both online and in stores, researchers said on Wednesday.