Online Shopping Sets New Records During 2010 Holiday Season

Online shoppers in the U.S. spent $32.6 billion during the 2010 holiday season – a 12% increase when compared to last year and, according to online analytics company comScore, an “all-time record for the season.” Interestingly, while the power of Cyber Monday has often been downplayed recently as online shoppers don’t have to go to work to get online anymore, this year’s Monday after Thanksgiving was the busiest online shopping day of the season. Online shoppers spent slightly more than $1 billion on this day alone (up 16% from last year) – making it the first day to top the billion dollar mark since comScore started tracking this data.

Half of All Transactions Included Free Shipping

It doesn’t come as a surprise that the 2010 holiday season performed much better than last year’s. After all, the U.S. was still in the throes of a major recession. This year, the availability of free shipping offers also gave shoppers more reasons to buy online. According to comScore almost half of all e-commerce transactions were shipped for free.

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