UK Internet shopping seen surging at Christmas
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More Britons than ever are expected to  shop online this Christmas as better delivery times, greater  ease with search engines and social networking sites like  MySpace.com fuel shopper confidence.
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Online holiday shopping rose 25 percent in 2004 to 23.2 billion dollars, a survey showed.
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U.S. online consumer spending from Nov. 1 to Dec. 31 was up 19% from the same time last year, according to comScore.
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Business and charities in the UK have joined forces to persuade more people to go online.
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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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More online shoppers are happy with their Web-buying experiences this year, according to Foresee Results --  and holiday spending on the Web is up 19% over 2006 levels.
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Retailers have hailed a &quot;fantastic&quot; last-minute Christmas shopping rush amid predictions of the day&#39;s sales have topped the Â£1 billion mark.
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UK shoppers left their Christmas shopping late this year but there was a seasonal rush, retailers say.
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The number of UK homes with internet access has gone up by nearly a million over the last year, figures suggest.
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Boom in internet shopping leaves many Britons waiting to pick up parcels ordered over the web
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Online shoppers in the United States spent &#36;23.2 billion during the holidays, excluding travel, up 25 percent from the 2003 season, according to a new survey from Goldman, Sachs & Co., Harris Interactive and Nielsen/NetRatings.
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Online sales grew 25 percent in the last shopping week before Christmas.
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LONDON - The number of newcomers to the internet in Britain has surged this year to its highest level since the dotcom heyday of 2001, according to a study.
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Economic pressures and online deals might have led consumers to sharply limit their trips to retailers in the week leading up to Christmas, data tracker ShopperTrak RCT said on Thursday.
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The number of newcomers to the Internet in Britain has surged this year to its highest level since the dotcom heyday of 2001, according to a study released 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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Santa Claus is as likely to be coming  through cyberspace in Europe this year as down the chimney  stack.