US online holiday sales are already on the rise, and are expected to grow 17 percent from last year to $43.4 billion, a new forecast said on November 21. The report from the research firm comScore showed retail e-commerce spending for the first 18 days of November-December holiday season were up 16 percent to $10.1 billion.
November 8 has been the heaviest online spending day of the season to date at $829 million, comScore said. "The 2012 online holiday shopping season is off to an encouraging start with a 16 percent growth thus far," said comScore chairman Gian Fulgoni. The comScore forecast of a 17 percent gain would outpace last season's 15 percent increase and would be well ahead of the retail industry's expectation for a 4.1 percent increase in consumers' overall spending this holiday season.
"The strength leading up to and during the holiday season-to-date, in addition to a maximum 32 shopping days between Thanksgiving and Christmas, provide the basis for what we view as a fairly optimistic outlook for the 2012 online holiday shopping season," said Fulgoni. US government data showed ecommerce sales for the third quarter from August-September rose 3.7 percent to $57 billion, and accounted for some 5.2 percent of all retail sales.