• by Karlene Lukovitz  @KLmarketdaily, December 19, 2007

Initial holiday sales stats for online retailers look optimistic, based on newly released Coremetrics data.

Department store and intimate apparel ecommerce sites saw particularly solid gains, although home-oriented and apparel sites may not get all they'd hoped for this Christmas.

Coremetrics' LIVEmark benchmarking tool compiled data for over 35 online performance metrics--including total online sales, number of online checkouts and average value of checkout amounts--for the 12-day period starting with the Monday before Thanksgiving. These were compared with data for the same period in 2006. The data comes from more than 300 participating retail brands, including JCPenney, Macy's, Abercrombie & Fitch, Victoria's Secret, REI, Williams-Sonoma, Staples, and PETCO.

Some highlights, including previously unreleased average checkout amounts:

Department store sites were laughing all the way, with the highest lift in sales among the major categories tracked: 37%. These sites also saw a 34% jump in number of online checkouts, and a 2.5% lift in average checkout amount, to $145.80.

Intimate apparel sites pulled the second-highest sales growth: 19%. They also saw a 17% increase in number of online checkouts and a 2% increase in checkout value amount, to $64.70.

Sports apparel sites are also on a roll, with a 17% gain in sales, 4% gain in number of checkouts, and 12.1% jump in average checkout value, to $119.30.

Health and beauty ecommerce site sales grew 17%, and their number of checkouts grew 25%--but average checkout spending declined by 5.4%, to $73.20.

Office supplies and electronics logged a 16% gain in both sales and number of checkouts, and gained nearly 1% on average checkout spending (up to $196.40).

Apparel sites' performance was somewhat weaker, with a 13% sales increase and a 15% lift in number of checkouts, but a 1.3% decrease in average checkout value (down to $120.50).

And no doubt reflecting in part the mortgage crisis, home-related sites saw a relatively modest 6% sales growth and 9% lift in number of checkouts--and a 2.5% decline in average checkout value, to $143.60.

Still, as Coremetrics CEO Joe Davis points out: "Across the board, our clients are experiencing year-over-year growth in traffic and in shopping."

In other words, while the full season's performance remains to be seen, the online retail sector seems to have gotten off to a fast start, despite fears about consumers scaling back on discretionary spending. In an October report, Forrester Research projected that '07 online holiday shopping would grow by 21% over 2006.