• by Wendy Davis , Staff Writer @wendyndavis, December 12, 2006

This holiday season is shaping up to be a strong one for e-commerce, according to a variety of recent reports. Consider, from Nov. 1 through Dec. 8, consumers spent an estimated $15.6 billion at retail sites, up 25% from last year, according to comScore Networks. Additionally, Nielsen//NetRatings recently reported that visits to sites in its holiday index were up 43% from the end of October through the first week of this month.

At the same time, there's still a lot of room for online retail to grow. This morning, the Conference Board reported that consumers appear to be saving their biggest ticket purchases for brick-and-mortar stores. Just 5% of online households intend to spend more than $500 on the e-commerce sites. By comparison, 22% say they'll spend more than $500 in physical stores, according to the Conference Board's Consumer Internet Barometer, which is produced jointly with TNS.

The Conference Board also examined factors that would encourage Web users to spend more online. Among the biggest lures was free postage, with more than 90% of consumers saying that free shipping would be an incentive to spend more online, and 35% saying they'd like free return shipping. Additionally, more than 65% said they'd likely spend more on e-commerce sites if those sites offered online-only deals not available in brick-and-mortar stores.