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Holiday E-commerce Postmortem: Record $29B in Sales

Some $29.2 billion was spent online during the 2007 holiday season, a 19 percent gain versus the same period last year, according to comScore’s final update of e-commerce holiday spending (Nov. 1 - Dec. 31), reports MarketingCharts.

Monday, Dec. 10, was the heaviest online spending day of the season with $881 million spent, and the week ended Dec. 16 was heaviest spending week, with $4.7 billion, comScore said. (See table of 2007 vs. 2006 full holiday season sales.)

“This year’s online holiday shopping season has concluded with a record $29 billion in spending, a 19 percent gain versus year ago,” said comScore Chairman Gian Fulgoni. “Ultimately, the softness in the growth of online retail sales during the first 10 days of November proved difficult to overcome and prevented the season’s growth rate from reaching our forecast of 20 percent.”

However, a healthier 21 percent growth rate was recorded during the period between Thanksgiving and Christmas, he said. Below, the holiday-season spending info issued by comScore.

Top 10 Online Spending Days

“Green Monday” (Monday, Dec. 10) was the heaviest individual spending day of the season with $881 million in sales, followed by Tuesday, Dec. 11 ($819 million), and Thursday, Dec. 6 ($803 million). (See table of top 10 online spending days.)

“Cyber Monday” (Nov. 26), the first major spike in online spending activity during the season, ranked as the 9th-heaviest day with $733 million.

Fastest-Growing Product Categories

Videogames, consoles & accessories was the fastest-growing online retail category, jumping 129 percent versus the 2006 holiday season, with popular consoles like Nintendo Wii and Sony PlayStation and games like Halo 3 driving strong sales in the category.

(See table of the fastest-growing online retail categories.)

Furniture, appliances & equipment (up 67 percent), event tickets (up 24 percent) and consumer electronics (up 23 percent) also experienced above-average growth.

After substantial softness early in the season, online apparel sales picked up considerably in the latter part of the season, finishing up 18 percent.

Meanwhile, sales of jewelry & watches declined marginally versus year ago; rising costs in precious metals like gold and platinum may have dampened consumer demand.

Weekly Online Holiday Retail Sales

The heaviest spending week during the 2007 holiday season was the week ended Dec. 16, with $4.7 billion in online sales, edging out the week ended Dec. 9’s $4.6 billion.

(See graph of 2003-2007 holiday online retail sales.)

The week ended Nov. 18 showed the strongest growth rate (26 percent) versus the corresponding week in 2006, while the week ended Nov. 4 showed the softest growth (4 percent).