Online spending down 3% this holiday season

RESTON, Va. comScore reported that online retail spending during the holiday shopping season (Nov. 1 through Dec. 23) was down 3% versus the corresponding shopping days in 2007.

"The 2008 online holiday shopping season has declined 3 percent versus year ago, falling behind our expectation of flat sales this year," said comScore chairman Gian Fulgoni. "This marks the first time we've seen negative growth rates for the holiday season since we began tracking e-commerce in 2001. The combination of having five fewer shopping days between Thanksgiving and Christmas and the severe economic headwinds faced by consumers has made this a really tough season for retailers, both offline and online."

Apple and Amazon among top traffic gainers in December despite soft online sales this holiday season, consumers continued to shop online for the best deals. In the period of Dec. 1 to Dec. 24 versus the corresponding shopping days last year, several top retailers achieved growth in visitation to their sites. eBay remained the most visited retail site with 85.4 million visitors but saw a slight decline of 4% in visitors, while three of the top five most visited sites recorded gains. Amazon Sites grew 7% to 76.2 million visitors, followed by Wal-Mart (up 4% to 51.5 million visitors), Target (down 1% to 46.8 million visitors) and Apple Inc. (up 19% to 35 million visitors).