Online Sales Up Double Digits

Ecommerce spending for 2014’s holiday period in the U.S. is up 15 percent from 2013 so far, with $42.5 billion in spending from desktop computers through Dec. 15, according to comScore.

Online sales — that is, not including mobile commerce — have broken the $1 billion mark every weekday (Monday through Friday) for the past two weeks. That makes 2014 the first year in history that billion-dollar-a-day weeks have been accomplished twice in the same holiday season, eCommerceBytes reported on Thursday (Dec. 18).

While the first full week (Monday through Sunday) following Black Friday logged $9.1 billion, up 14 percent from 2013’s $8 billion, the following week also performed well, with online merchants taking in $8.6 billion, up from $7.7 billion in 2013, a 12 percent rise.

Online sales have seen double-digit percentage rises for every slice of the 2014 holiday season that comScore has measured so far.

ComScore chairman emeritus Gian Fulgoni expects one last surge in online buying this season. “Despite a slight deceleration in growth rates during this past week, we still observed strong spending in total,” Fulgoni said, adding that he expects the early part of the week beginning Dec. 15 “to experience one last surge in online buying leading up to Free Shipping Day on Dec. 18th, after which the online holiday shopping season should start winding down.”