• by Sarah Mahoney  @mahoney_sarah, December 7, 2010

Despite a gangbusters Cyber Monday, it looks like consumer enthusiasm for online holiday shopping is fading a little, according to the latest tracking results from comScore. The Reston, Va.-based digital measurement company attributes the hangover to the heavy discounting and promotional activity leading up to Cyber Monday, which got people shopping earlier than usual.

That slowdown was to be expected, Andrew Lipsman, comScore's senior director of industry analysis, tells Marketing Daily. "Our forecasted holiday growth of 11% accounts for an expected slowdown," he says. "The heavy promotional activity early in the season pulled demand forward a bit, so we did not think that 13% growth rates could be sustained throughout the season."

So far, comScore reports that e-commerce spending for the first 33 days of the November-December 2010 holiday season has hit $16.8 billion, a 12% increase from that same period last year. And this Cyber Monday came in at a record $1.028 billion.

ComScore also says the 25 largest retailers are continuing to gain share, a trend that started with the recession. The Top 25 online retailers, with sales up 20%, are entirely responsible for this season's growth; small and mid-sized retailers have had flat results.

"Large retailers have economies of scale that enable them to offer more competitive pricing, which consumers respond to in a recession. And they can keep up their marketing spend during downturns, while that is much harder for mid-sized and smaller retailers to do. So large retailers tend to gain media/advertising share of voice during recessions."

Sales declined a bit in brick-and-mortar venues as well. The International Council of Shopping Centers reports that retail results for the week ending Dec. 4 declined by 2.1% from the previous week, and 2.6% from a year ago.

"This early-December slowdown has become quite common in recent years, but since consumers continue to report that their holiday-gift shopping completion rate is far lower than in recent years, sales should accelerate in the coming weeks," the trade group says in its report. The ICSC predicts a comparable-store sales growth gain of between 3 to 3.5% for December.