Holiday shoppers spent more than $27 billion this year with just a few clicks of a mouse, an increase of 12 percent over 2009.
Its still a small piece of the pie — holiday shopping hit $437 billion last year in total — but with in-store retail expecting to jump 3.3 percent, online shopping is on the rise.
This season’s online shopping boom resulted in the first billion-dollar day in e-commerce history when on Nov. 29, or “Cyber Monday,” consumers spent $1.028 billion on nontravel retail purchases. Last year, shoppers ran up $887 million, or 16 percent less.
According to comScore, online shoppers spent $5.15 billion in the week ending Dec. 17, with four individual days surpassing $900 million.
Jason Weinberger, 22, is an assistant manager at the Sheepskin Gifts kiosk at Tysons Corner Center, one of the largest malls in the country. Although the mall was packed, Weinberger pointed out that he saw more people walking empty-handed than with bags.
“I think they’re getting ideas, and comparison shopping, doing a lot of online shopping,” Weinberger said.
Computer hardware grew the most online by 25 percent, followed by consumer electronics, which posted a 22 percent sales increase over 2009.
This huge growth spurt caused some online retailers to push back their ship-by dates. Amazon, the largest in the country, eschewed its usual five-to-eight business days delivery policy for orders above $25, instead setting Dec. 19 as the last day to ensure arrival by Christmas.
