December 14 2007
US Christmas spending hits $4.6 Billion a week
US Online Christmas shopping seems to be hitting new records every day.
The comScore figures for this Christmas seem to becoming more and more outrageous as every weekend and every week hits new highs. The latest update of Christmas e-commerce spending for the first 41 days (November 1 – December 11) of the November – December 2007 Christmas season show more than $20 billion has been spent online during the season-to-date, marking a 19% gain versus the corresponding days last year. “Green Monday,” a term recently coined by eBay to describe the second Monday in December as the heaviest online spending day of the season, may well live up to its lofty billing as U.S. online retail spending on December 10 reached $881 million (up 33% on last year), setting a record as the heaviest online spending day in history.
Through the first 41 days of the online holiday shopping season, three individual shopping days have surpassed $800 million in sales, led by Monday, December 10 (“Green Monday”) with $881 million, followed by Tuesday, December 11 with $819 million and Thursday, December 6 with $803 million. Wednesday, December 5 came in just shy of that threshold with $798 million in spending.
“Online spending is following the pattern it first established last year, namely an accelerating growth rate as the season progresses,” said comScore Chairman Gian Fulgoni. “Consumers are clearly responding positively to the enticing promotions and discounts being offered by retailers this year, and spending is currently on track to meet our forecast of $29.5 billion for the season.”
Additionally most of the buying seems to be done at work and around the “lunch hour” rather than in it as you would have expected. Online spending has been peaking during the middle of the day, driven by the heavy influence of shopping from work, with work buying accounting for 45% of all e-commerce dollars spent this Christmas season. More than half of was spent between the hours of 9:00 AM – 3:00 PM, with the heaviest spending (26.9%) occurring during the 12:00 PM – 3:00 PM time segment. Nearly 10 percent of online spending occurred between 10:00 AM – 11:00 AM and 1:00 PM – 2:00 PM, making them the peak individual hour segments during the day.
Some additional findings during the most recent week:
- Consumer electronics experienced a strong week of online sales, up 43% versus year ago, outpacing its 23% growth rate during the season-to-date.
- Event tickets also had a particularly strong week, gaining 70% versus the corresponding period last year.
- Clothing outperformed its season-to-date growth rate of 16% with a 22% gain during the most recent week.
- Toy sales saw just a 3% growth rate during the past week, lowering its growth for the season to date to 14%.
