comScore: Desktop e-commerce spending up 16%

Reston, Va. -- Desktop-based e-commerce sales totaled $49.8 billion in the U.S. during the second quarter of this year. According to a new report from comScore, this represents an almost 16% increase from about $43.1 billion in the second quarter of the previous year.



This also marks the 15th consecutive quarter of positive year-over-year growth and 11th consecutive quarter of double-digit growth. Mobile commerce spending rose by $4.7 billion, or 24%, during the quarter. Other highlights of comScore’s data include:

• The top-performing online product categories were: Apparel & Accessories, Digital Content & Subscriptions, Sport & Fitness, Consumer Packaged Goods and Home & Garden. Each category grew at least 19 compared to a year ago.

• E-commerce accounted for 9.6% of consumers' discretionary spending, the highest second quarter share on record.

• Apparel & Accessories was the highest grossing m-commerce product category with more than $700 million in Q2 sales, followed by Computer Hardware and Digital Content & Subscriptions.



"The second quarter of 2013 saw a healthy acceleration in the online spending growth rate to nearly 16 percent on the strength of a particularly enthusiastic April from consumers," said comScore chairman Gian Fulgoni. "Increased spending growth for the quarter not only reflects the long term share shift towards digital commerce, but also the near-term signals of sustained improvement in consumer sentiment. This strength is particularly significant since the second quarter tends to be seasonally lighter for e-commerce, and, as such, represents a positive indicator for the back half of the year."