Web Holiday Sales Off to Strong Start
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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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The online retailer reported this week that its sales of consumer electronics surpassed book sales for the first time during the Thanksgiving weekend to become the top sales category on the site.
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Online holiday shopping rose 25 percent in 2004 to 23.2 billion dollars, a survey showed.
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NEW YORK -- Retailers got what they wanted over the Thanksgiving weekend -- a strong start to the 2006 holiday shopping season.
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E-tailers have laggards and penny-pinchers to thank for last week&#39;s brisk sales, which grew 25 percent over the comparable period last year, according to comScore.Procrastinators and deal-seekers helped create a &quot;flurry&quot; of online spending last week in the U.S., keeping retail e-sales strong, comScore said Sunday.Between Nov. 1 and Dec. 21 -- the first 51 days of the holiday season -- U.S. shoppers have spent $26.3 billion online, up 19 percent compared with the corresponding period last year.So far, the heaviest online shopping day this season was Dec. 10, the so-called &quot;Green Monday,&quot; a term coined by eBay for the second Monday in December, which the vendor has identified as particularly heavy e-sales day. U.S. shoppers spent $881 million that day, up 33 percent from the corresponding day in 2006.By contrast, Cyber Monday, the first workday after the Thanksgiving holiday in the U.S., ranks as this holiday season&#39;s ninth heaviest online shopping day, with $733 million in sales. Cyber Monday is considered the day when holiday online shopping kicks into high gear.Overall, comScore expects this year&#39;s holiday season to generate about $29.5 billion in online spending, which would represent a 20 percent increase from the same period in 2006.
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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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Retail sales over the Internet rose 4.7 percent in the third quarter and gained 21.5 percent compared with the same period last year as consumers continued to turn to e-commerce for shopping, a government report showed Friday.
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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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Online retailer declares ''best ever'' holiday season, offers snapshot of season's sales activity.
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It's shaping up to be a very  merry holiday season for online retailers.
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Online shops look set to have a good Christmas as UK web-users get the online buying habit.
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(InfoWorld) - The 2006 holiday shopping period got off to a strong start over the weekend, according to several e-commerce operators. The Friday after the Thanksgiving holiday is typically seen as the start of the holiday sales season in the U.S. and retail outlets across the nation see some of the largest crowds of the year on that day. In recent years, online retailers also report strong traffic on the day. While consumers may be opening their wallets to online retailers like never before, there's also evidence they are after bargains like never before. Two online price comparison sites, which point consumers to the lowest prices for various items, reported surging traffic. Pricegrabber.com said it's seen a 45 percent increase year-over-year in referrals to merchants for November to date. In some categories, including toys, sporting goods and apparel, the amount of traffic sent to retailers by Pricegrabber has more than doubled, it said. Rival site Shopping.com reported a 40 percent jump in November-to-date referrals to online retailers and said hot categories include kids and family, home and garden, and clothing and accessories. Despite the strong traffic, Monday is likely to be busier, said Shopping.com. Last year visitors to the site peaked between noon and 2 p.m. on Monday. Two of the season's hottest holiday gift items, the recently-launched PlayStation 3 and Wii games consoles, have been selling fast on Ebay. In the week to Nov. 24, 14,675 PlayStation 3 and 26,708 Wii consoles were sold through the site. The average price of the PS3 was US$1,186.39 while the Wii fetched an average $412.53, according to eBay Marketplace Research. Both prices are well above their suggested retail prices. Other hot electronics items include the Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. BDP-1000 Blu-ray Disc player and Apple Computer Inc.'s iPod nano and iPod Shuffle, the company said.
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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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Holiday shopping got off to a flying  start in the United States this weekend.
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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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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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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