• by Gavin O'Malley  @mp_gavin, December 11, 2006

Online holiday spending--for toys and video games, in particular--continues its steep rise, according to the latest research from Nielsen//NetRatings. From the end of October through the first week of this month, Nielsen//NetRatings' holiday e-shopping index grew by 43%.

The fastest-growing category in the market, Nielsen reported, is toys and video games, which has increased 129% since the end of October. Consumer electronics came in second--rising 101%--followed by jewelry, which grew 76%.

The first Monday after Thanksgiving, known as "Cyber Monday," wasn't the top traffic day this year. That honor went to the first Wednesday following Thanksgiving, Nov. 29--which witnessed thirty million people online for an increase of 18% year-over-year, according to Nielsen//NetRatings.

When measuring work-traffic only, Cyber Monday did see the most online traffic--16.1 million users, or an increase of 7% over last year. The Sunday after Thanksgiving, meanwhile, attracted the greatest numbers of home shoppers--20 million, or an increase of 20% year-over-year.

Hitwise, earlier last week, reported that for the week ended Dec. 2, visits to Web sites in an index of 100 online retailers it tracks rose about 4% year-over-year. Also, comScore Networks reported that from Nov. 1 through Dec. 3, online spending rose to $12.42 billion--up 25% year-over-year. The number of consumers who made purchases grew 17%, while dollars spent per consumer increased by 7%.

In addition, search engines last week drove about 26% of traffic to shopping sites--an increase of 6.3% from a year ago. Notably, home shopping is growing by 30% year-over-year, while the shopping that consumers do from work is growing by 19%. comScore attributes this trend to increased home broadband penetration over the last year.