Although the season kicked off with a bang, there were fears that consumer confidence would fall as the end of the year approached. That did not happen, with people continuing to fill their virtual shopping carts until the very last minute; 10 individual days surpassed $1 billion in spending.

According to comScore, the final tally for online spending for the months of November and December was $37.2 billion, representing a 15 percent increase over last year.

ComScore tracks purchases made on Web sites from a fixed Internet connection, excluding spending done via mobile phones and tablets, so presumably the numbers could be higher.

While the numbers being reported sound positive, some analysts worry if they were enough to give giants like Amazon the growth rates needed to hit expectations. Wall Street analysts are expecting Amazon to post a fourth-quarter growth rate of 38 percent, which would mean it would have to be growing twice as fast as the average market.

But Chase Paymentech’s annual Cyber Holiday Pulse Index painted a rosier picture of the holiday season. Based on tracking 50 of the leading online merchants in the U.S., the report found that during the final two months of the year, transactions were up 37 percent and sales rose 25 percent.

One of the reasons for the huge gains, it said, was because Christmas fell on a Sunday this year, allowing merchants to guarantee shipping much later into the week and giving consumers more time to make online transactions.

To be sure, the increase in online shopping is coming from somewhere — most likely at the expense of traditional retail, which is expected to report a less impressive 4 percent growth rate this year.

“It’s clear that e-commerce continues to gain market share from traditional retail due to the attractiveness of the Internet’s convenience and lower prices,” said comScore Chairman Gian Fulgoni. “Consumers were especially attracted to the deals and discounts available through digital channels -– particularly free shipping, which occurred on well over half of transactions this season.”

The most impressive finding of the season was that 10 individual days surpassed $1 billion in spending, compared to only one day in 2010.

Here is a list of the 10 biggest online shopping days in 2011, led by Cyber Monday:

(Image credit: iStockphoto.com/mbortolino)

For the first time ever, so-called Cyber Monday registered as the biggest online shopping day of the year despite years of procrastinators lifting other days higher as they waited until a few days before Christmas to do their online shopping.

The theory had always been that consumers who flocked to stores on Black Friday would return to their desks on Monday to continue buying deals online.

Last year, the plan panned out and more than $1 billion-worth in items were added to virtual shopping carts across the U.S. to make it the heaviest online shopping day of the year — and the first time ever that a single day eclipsed the billion-dollar mark.

Now, with November already off to a strong start with a 15 percent increase in sales compared to the same period last year, another strong Monday could be in the works, according to comScore, which tracks online holiday spending. The research firm tracks shopping from fixed Internet connections, meaning it doesn’t count items purchased on phones or tablets.

Black Friday — the day after Thanksgiving — alone saw online sales of $816 million, making it the heaviest online spending day to date in 2011 and representing a 26 percent increase over the same day in 2010, comScore reported.

ComScore Chairman Gian Fulgoni said, “We now turn our attention to Cyber Monday, a day that Shop.org says will see eight in ten retailers running special online promotions. Last year, Cyber Monday was the heaviest day of online spending ever, with sales exceeding $1 billion, and we fully expect to see another record set this year.”

Cyber Monday may finally be living up to its name.

Amazon is a prime example of a retailer working hard to pry open wallets today.

Last year, the largest e-commerce company said Cyber Monday was Amazon’s peak day with more than 13.7 million items ordered worldwide, setting a record for 158 items sold per second.

Today, it will be important to achieve that pace again.

On Sunday, it bought full-color circulars in newspapers around the country promoting its lineup of discounts in its special Cyber Monday store.

On the front page, it touted its full lineup of Kindle e-readers, and a couple of pages were also dedicated to sales supposedly so steep you had to go online to see the prices for electronics, cellphones and videogames.

The Cyber Monday store, however, appeared a little unorganized with random “lightning deals,” which ranged from gift baskets to knife sets, board games, power tools and inexpensive jewelry — but nothing that seemed like the hit item of the season.

Other leading retailers, including Wal-Mart, Best Buy and Target, will also be expected to offer special deals.

Surely, the theory goes, if enough marketing dollars are spent, and the discounts are substantial enough, it might get consumers to turn out again to break another record.

In a blog post, comScore analyst Andrew Lipsman explained that last year’s shopping bonanza on Cyber Monday — which was first named that six years ago — was finally successful thanks to consumer awareness.

Over the past few years, it’s been steadily climbing.

In 2009, it was the second-biggest shopping day; in 2008, it ranked third. Before that, it wasn’t even close to the top. In 2006, it ranked 12th and in 2007, it ranked ninth.

“Today the majority of consumers know what it is and the attractive types of deals they can anticipate. With increased awareness comes increased participation on the part of both retailers and consumers,” he wrote.

So, now we have to wait to see if the deals — and the shoppers — both turn out, or if Cyber Monday turns out to be just another big sales day.

(Image credit: iStockphoto.com/mbortolino)

ComScore said this represented the third consecutive quarter of double-digit growth rates, which are being fueled by more Americans choosing to shop online. The number of online buyers was up 16 percent, compared to the year-ago period.

Some 70 percent of all Internet users in the U.S. made at least one purchase during the second quarter.

This quarter’s numbers shouldn’t be a big shock since Amazon surprised Wall Street by reporting a 51 percent year-over-year surge in sales, despite the second quarter typically being the slowest period of the year.

ComScore Chairman Gian Fulgoni said almost $1 of every $10 in discretionary spending is now occurring online. “E-commerce’s benefits of convenience and lower prices continue to be the drivers of the shift,” he added.

Other highlights from the quarter:

• The top-performing categories that grew by at least 15 percent compared to 2010 were: Consumer electronics, computer hardware, software and event tickets.
• Small and mid-sized retailers continued to gain market share, with the top 25 online retailers accounting for 66.4 percent of dollars spent online, down from 67.7 percent a year ago.
• The second quarter represented the seventh consecutive quarter of positive gains year over year. The last time spending online decreased was in the third quarter of 2009.

Spending in the fourth quarter was up 11 percent over a year ago, representing the fifth consecutive quarter of positive annual growth and the second quarter of double-digit growth rates in the past year.

In 2010, holiday spending online was bolstered by the first-ever billion-dollar day on record, and others surpassing $900 million. The strong growth rates are a huge swing from two years ago, when fourth-quarter sales fell by three percent.

The bulk of online sales occur among the top 25 online retailers, which accounted for 68.4 percent of dollars spent.

As the largest e-commerce provider, Amazon turned in a fourth-quarter performance that mirrored comScore’s findings. Amazon reported its first $10 billion quarter ever, and saw year-over-year growth rates of 40 percent (its best growth rate since 2000).

In a release, comScore Chairman Gian Fulgoni predicted that the increased spending levels will continue this year: “We anticipate that the progress we’ve seen in the past year as we climbed out of the recession will continue with sustained double-digit growth rates in 2011.”

Other highlights:

• The top categories were computer software, consumer electronics, digital books and magazines, computers and peripherals, and toys and hobbies.
• 84 percent of U.S. Internet users conducted an online transaction in the period, up from 78 percent last year.

ComScore said in the past week alone, four days exceeded $800 million in spending, including Cyber Monday, which became the heaviest online spending day on record at $1.028 billion.

On Tuesday, spending hit $911 million, making it the third-heaviest day on record, and Wednesday and Thursday came in at $868 million and $850 million, respectively. These figures include both physical merchandise, and relatively new categories, like virtual goods.

The big winners in the past week have been the Amazon.coms of the world and other large retailers, comScore noted.

The top 25 online retailers generated 20 percent more sales for the month of November, compared to last year, and their share increased to nearly 68 percent of the market. Meanwhile, the marketshare of small-to-mid-size retailers shrunk to 32.2 percent.

These increases aren’t expected to last as some retailers became less aggressive with promotions and discounts toward the end of the week, when year-over-year growth rates fell to single digits. “We may see another week of this effect before late season discounts and buying by procrastinators gives the season a final spending surge,” said comScore chairman Gian Fulgoni.

But even though they are expected to spend more this season than during last year’s downtrodden holiday season, consumers are likely to keep their online spending tempered, the group said.

ComScore said consumers spent $8.21 billion online from Nov. 1-22, a 2 percent jump from the same period a year earlier. It expects the total for both November and December to reach $28.8 billion, a 3 percent gain from last year’s holiday season. Results fell 3 percent last year and comScore noted prior-years growth was 20 percent or higher.

“Online spending this holiday season will likely be tempered by the stark reality of 10 percent unemployment and less disposable income in many consumers’ wallets,” said comScore Chairman Gian Fulgoni.

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In the second quarter, U.S. online retail sales fell one percent year over year, following flat sales in the first quarter and a three percent drop in the fourth quarter of last year, according to ComScore.

“The marginally negative growth in Q2, on the heels of flat growth in Q1, signals that online retail spending has yet to turn the corner after a disappointing end to last year,” ComScore Chairman Gian Fulgoni said in a statement.

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Add February’s numbers to January’s data, which showed the same two percent growth rate, and you can make the case that we’re seeing “marginal growth” in online sales, Fulgoni said this morning at the OMMA Global Hollywood.

Best-case scenario? “Maybe we might well have bottomed out with consumer spending,” Fulgoni offered.

Now, all the caveats: ComScore (SCOR) isn’t telling us what people bought, or at what prices, so all we really know is that dollars were exchanged for goods on the Web. And while you can imagine that this data point is good news for Amazon (AMZN), since the online retailer is crushing the competition, it’s hard to point to other likely winners. And I worry that the economy has many more aftershocks, in the form of layoffs, ahead, and that’s going to drag down consumer spending again.

But I’m so starved for good news that none of these asterisks are going to keep me from enjoying this.

Meanwhile, if you have any questions for Fulgoni, email me as soon as you can: In an hour or so I’m moderating an OMMA panel with him, Citibank (C) analyst Mark Mahaney, MySpace marketing SVP Angela Courtin, tech/finance blogger Paul Kedrosky and Michael D. Kelley, a partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers. There should be some sort of blog coverage here.

[Image credit: rileyroxx]

ComScore today reports that for the first 23 days of November, e-commerce spending (excluding travel, auctions and large corporate purchases) was down four percent from the same period last year. ComScore Chairman Gian Fulgoni said that “with consumer confidence low and disposable income tight, the first weeks of November have been very disappointing.”

ComScore’s forecast is that overall online spending this year will be flat versus a year ago. That compares with a 19 percent rise in spending online last year, and a nine percent rise in e-commerce for the year through October.

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