comScore: Holiday spending tops $4 billion

The first official shopping week during the 2007 holiday shopping season was a good one for online retailers according to metrics firm comScore. comScore research indicates that online shopping topped $4 billion in revenue for the week of November 26th.

by Kristina Knight

“This most recent week saw several very strong days for online retail spending,” said comScore Chairman Gian Fulgoni. “Beginning with a record $733 million on Cyber Monday, each of the next three days also surpassed $700 million in sales, resulting in more than $4 billion in online spending during the week.”

For the month of November, online spending has topped $13 billion.

As spending spiked last week, researchers noted that much online shopping happened during prime work hours. This indicates that many adults are shopping while at work; about 45% of online shopping is estimated to have happened at work during the month of November.

Why are so many consumers logging on from work? This is unknown. According to the report a majority of Internet households have high-speed access, so consumers aren't simply looking for a faster connection. Consumers could be utilizing break times or lunch hours to pick up a few hard-to-find buys or are simply taking advantage of having relative security (no prying children's eyes looking over their shoulders) to make a few surprise buys.