The growth of online shopping is a noteworthy trend from this year's holiday spending bash. E-commerce increased 15.4 percent over last year, according to MasterCard Spending Pulse. Online checkout carts registered double-digit growth in six of the seven weeks of the holiday season. Sales hit the billion-dollar mark six times compared to just three days last year. Biggest gains came in sales of apparel sales, which accounted for nearly 19 percent of all online sales, according to the survey, which looks at spending across all payment forms. Electronics also were strong, while jewelry sales lagged. When I talked to Marshal Cohen on Monday about how the East Coast snowstorm was affecting post-Christmas sales, he suspected online sales might get a bigger boost – but at the expense of mom-and-pop shops.
Then there's Britt Beemer of America's Research Group whose take on E-commerce goes like this:
Final numbers will be out on Jan 6, when retailers report December sales.
