Online sales for the first 44 days of this year’s holiday shopping season totaled $33.8 billion, up 13% over last year’s total of $30 billion. Last week, shoppers spend nearly $7 billion, including $1.275 billion on Green Monday, December 10, and more than $1 billion on three other days.
The data comes from research firm comScore Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR). The company’s chairman said:
With this most recent week in the books, the peak spending period may now be in our rear-view-mirror — but the online holiday shopping season is not over yet. We should have one more headline day on Free Shipping Day this Monday the 17th as the procrastinators among us scramble to order gifts in time for Christmas next week. For the season-to-date, the growth rate based on corresponding days last year is 13 percent. But, with two extra shopping days between Thanksgiving and Christmas this year, we still expect that the full season will realize a growth rate well north of 13 percent.
Those two extra shopping days are expected to boost 2012 holiday spending to $43.4 billion, up 17% from the 2011 total of $37.2 billion.
Paul Ausick
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