ComScore released its holiday reports on Monday and at the first sight it looks like online spending hit $50 billion last quarter. The increasing sales percentage was determined by the winter holidays. Since many shops are crowded in this time of the year, many more customers prefer to purchase their presents on the Internet.
The report shows that during the final quarter of 2011, online U.S. shops sales amounted to $49.7 billion. The sum represents a 14 percent growth as compared to the results registered during the same period of the previous year.
E-commerce has become increasingly more popular in the past few years. This was the ninth quarter in a row with a positive year-over-year growth and the fifth consecutive quarter during which double-digit gains were registered.
There were several days that were particularly lucrative outside the quarter because they brought $1 billion sales to online stores. These were the Cyber Monday on November 28 with $1.251 billion, Monday, December 5, occupied the second position due to its $1.178 billion revenue and Green Monday, December 12 was placed on the third position with $1.133 billion.
This year, online retailers wanted to reward their customers for the products they have bought; therefore, the number of customers who received free shipping amounted to 52 percent. This level was bigger than the one registered in the fourth quarter of 2010 which amounted only to 49 percent.
According to researchers, the majority of the products that were bought in the first quarter of 2012 come from popular product categories. Digital Content and Subscriptions, Jewelry and Watches, Consumer Electronics, Toys and Hobbies, as well as Computer Software were the categories that were more visited by online customers. They all registered an 18 percent jump in respect to last year’s sales.
Smartphones and tablets were the two most used products in the last quarter. This is partially due to the fact that customers had the opportunity to compare prices and check features while they were in the physical stores.
