Holy Cow, You Spent $35.3 Billion Online This Holiday Season
Current economic woes didn’t put much of a damper on holiday spending this year, particularly online. Between November 1 and December 26, U.S. consumers spent some $35.3 billion online, according to the latest metrics from comScore.
That’s quite a spike — 15 percent more than they spent last year — and a new record. The week ending December 25 alone saw $2.8 billion in spending, an increase of 16 percent over the year prior.
Even more interesting was the increase in purchases made online on Christmas Day.
On an average day during the 2011 holiday consumer binge, digital content purchases accounted for about 2.8 percent of retail e-commerce sales. On Christmas Day they accounted for more than 20 percent. Evidently, lots of folks spent Christmas morning loading up their smartphones, tablets and e-readers. And they’ll continue to do so for much of this week.
Says comScore, “Consistent with past years, [we expect] sales for this category of products to remain elevated throughout the entire week following Christmas Day.”