• by Wendy Davis  @wendyndavis, November 27, 2006

More than 19.2 million Web users visited e-commerce sites from home on the day after Thanksgiving, marking a 12% increase from last year, according to measurement company Nielsen//NetRatings. That increase, however, was modest compared to last year, when visits to shopping sites surged 29% according to Nielsen//NetRatings.

Week-over-week, visits to sites in Nielsen//NetRatings' holiday shopping index--a collection of 120 online retailer sites--rose over 32%.

Last week, online auction site eBay was the most popular shopping destination, with 7.5 million visitors--16% more than last year. Amazon was the second most popular e-commerce site with 3.4 million visitors, up 45% year-over-year. Wal-Mart's site--the third most trafficked--saw 3.2 million visitors, a 191% increase from 2005.

Among top 10 sites, BestBuy.com showed the largest traffic gain, garnering around 1.7 million visitors--a 316% increase from last year's 406,000. Circuitcity.com also saw traffic more than triple to 1.1 million visitors, up 211% from last year's 367,000.

In general, Web users flocked to consumer electronics sites last week. Sites in that category drew around 211% more visitors last week than the week ending Nov. 17. Other categories to show strong weekly growth include apparel (117%) and home and garden (87%). Visits to comparison shopping sites also grew 79% week over week.

Separately, media measurement company comScore reported Sunday that consumers spent an estimated $434 million on Friday--up 42% from the same day last year. For the period from Nov. 1 through last Friday, online retail spending overall climbed to $8.31 billion, up 23% from last year, according to comScore.