It's Official, Online Retail Spending Breaks Holiday Record
- by Paul Gough , January 5, 2004
The holiday season and last 12 months were record-breaking again this year, according to estimates released Saturday by comScore Networks in Chicago.
Online retail spending rose to $12.5 billion for the holidays, measured by comScore as Nov. 1 trough Dec. 31. That's up 29.5 percent from the $9.7 billion logged by comScore from Nov. 1 through Dec. 31, 2002. The figure doesn't include travels and auctions.
"We've closed another great year in online commerce," said Dan Hess, senior vice president of comScore Networks. "Consumers spent an average of $200 million per day throughout November and December, bringing holiday growth to just about the top end of our forecast of 25 to 30 percent."
The holiday capped another great year for online retail, which comScore said would jump 22 percent to $52 billion compared to $43 billion in 2002. That doesn't include travel or auctions. If travel is included, then retail spending online was up 27 percent to $93 billion.
Hess said online travel had a great year, up 35 percent from 2002's level and double the business done in 2001.
"For a number of weeks during the peak travel-buying season in June and July, travel spending exceeded all other product categories combined," Hess said.
