Black Friday online spending jumps 15% to $1.20B; more consumers opt to shop from home

By Nicel Jane Avellana

Dec 01, 2013 07:24 PM EST

As more shoppers choose to make purchases through the internet, online spending on Black Friday rose 15% to USD 1.20 billion. According to data released by research firm comScore Inc, e-commerce sales for the first 29 days in this year's holiday season went up 3.1% to USD 20.6 billion compared to last year's figures. However, comScore said that since Thanksgiving occurred later this year, the 2013 figures included a few more shopping days.

In a statement, comScore Chairman Gian Fulgoni said, "While Black Friday -- and now Thanksgiving Day -- is the traditional kickoff to the brick-and-mortar holiday shopping season, both days continue to grow in importance on the online channel. Many consumers prefer to avoid the crowds and lines typically associated with Black Friday by shopping from the comfort of their own homes, and we saw a record 66 million Americans do that this year."

The 66.1 million Americans who shopped through online retail websites on a desktop computer represented a 16% increase from that of the previous year. The most visited site was Amazon. Next on the list were eBay followed by Walmart, Best Buy and Target.

comScore also reported that 28% of online spending went to Apparel & Accessories. This was followed by Computer Hardware which accounted for 19% of online spending. Seven percent of online spending went to Consumer Electronics while Consumer Packaged Goods and Shipping Services each accounted 5% of the spending.

The figures given by comScore only considered spending made through desktop computers and excluded those made on mobile. Citing data from IBM, a TechCrunch report said mobile traffic for Black Friday this year rose 34% compared to last year's figures. It accounted for 39.7$% of all online traffic. The report added that mobile sales also comprised 21.8% of all sales online which represented a year-over-year increase of almost 43%.

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