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For the ninth consecutive quarter, the fourth quarter of 2011 achieved strong year-over-year growth in online retail spending. The recent report, which was released by the leading online market researcher comScore, indicated a 14% increase in sales compared to the fourth quarter in 2010. Online retailers raked in an impressive $49.7 billion in sales. Also, [...]

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Mobile shopping options and free shipping offers made online shopping too convenient to pass up last year.

Consumers put their digital wallets to work to the tune of $161.5 billion for all of 2011, and $49.7 billion in the last three months alone.

Altogether, e-commerce spending in 2011 was up 13 percent from 2010, with online shopping surging 14 percent year-over-year in the fourth quarter, according to market research firm comScore.

“The fourth quarter of 2011 capped off what was yet another strong year for online retail, one in which every quarter achieved double-digit increases versus the prior year,” comScore chairman Gian Fulgoni said. “Price and convenience continue to be the critical value drivers for e-commerce, and unless those conditions change we can expect to see more channel-shifting to online in 2012 and perhaps even an acceleration in the current growth trend.”

Fourth quarter growth was fueled by 10 different $1 billion-plus online spending days, including Cyber Monday which lived up to its name and accounted for $1.251 billion in e-commerce spending, comScore said. The company partially attributed growth to consumers’ growing predilection for shopping via tablet or smartphone, a clear trend for 2011 and beyond.

Consumers also chose not to pass up free shipping offers, as the percentage of e-commerce transactions that included free shipping rose to 52 percent for the year, an all-time high. Plus, the “Digital Content & Subscriptions” product category grew by more than 18 percent year-over-year and was one of the top performing categories for the year. Amazon and Apple likely contributed significantly to the trend, as the two companies have sold boatloads of devices centered around the digital content experience.

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Filed under: mobile, VentureBeat

It looks like consumers in the U.S. were shopping online alongside opening presents this year. According to IBM’s Coremetrics retail data, online sales on Christmas Day grew by 16.4 percent from last year.

Similar to trends seen over the Thanksgiving holidays, more shoppers were flocking to mobile devices to complete purchases. IBM says that 18.3 percent of all online sessions on retailers’ sites were initiated from a mobile device, up from 8.4 percent in 2010 (an increase of 117.8 percent).

Sales completed from mobile devices grew, reaching 14.4 percent versus 5.3 percent on Christmas Day 2010, representing an increase of 172.9 percent. In terms of specific mobile devices, the iPad led all mobile device traffic to retailers at 7 percent, followed by the iPhone at 6.4 percent and Android at 5 percent.

The day after Christmas also brought increased online sales, says IBM. E-commerce sales for December 26 were up 10 percent and 18.7 percent of all online sessions on a retailer’s site were initiated from a mobile device. And 13.8 of total sales came from mobile devices.

The holiday shopping season is still not over, as many online retailers are offering discounts post-Christmas and around New Years. We’ll see how online retail spending performs over the next week, but all signs are pointing to record sales this year.

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Mobile is growing as a medium for ecommerce, with users sourcing deals from their phones and tablets before visiting physical stores according to a new study by Usablenet, The company which powers mobile sites for 100 top U.S. retailers including JCPenney, Aeropostale, and REI tracked 1.8 million page views and 1 million mobile users over Thanksgiving and Black Friday. It saw mobile traffic to its clients was up 60% from the same period last year, with Thanksgiving sending more traffic than the following day. Usablenet also found that iOS devices accounted for 42% of the traffic, trumping Android, and trouncing the tiny traffic from Windows and Nokia devices.

Earlier today, Leena reported that Black Friday online retail spending was up 24.3% this year, and that mobile increased it share of total traffic and sales. In addition to driving sales directly, though, mobile is facilitating offline sales and product pick-ups. Usablenet tells me, “Thanksgiving activity focused on finding and purchasing deals such as deals of the day, driven from email marketing along with high usage of the purchase online and pick up in-store option.”

On Black Friday, mobile usage centered around finding store locations, browsing reviews, and accessing previously saved wish lists while people walked aisles at their local merchants. These insights can help retailers plan for next year. They should look to send out email marketing and deal notices early on Thanksgiving, as that’s when people make decisions of where to shop. This could work better than distributing promotions right at the start of Black Friday when customers may have already set a shopping agenda.

Traffic by mobile operating system also mirrored sales, with iOS taking the biggest cut, but less than last year. Android is creeping up, accounting for 34% of mobile traffic up from 28% in 2010. BlackBerry still represents a respectable 15% of mobile traffic, while Windows and Nokia each made up less than 3%. If this trend continues, by next year it may be just as important for big retailers to offer Android apps as iOS ones.

Thanksgiving brought record online retail sales for the holiday, with spending up 39.3 percent over Thanksgiving 2010. And today, IBM Coremetrics data shows a 24.3 percent growth in online sales on Black Friday compared to the same period last year.

Mobile traffic on Black Friday was 14.3 percent of all retail traffic compared to 5.6 percent in 2010. Sales on mobile devices surged to 9.8 percent from 3.2 percent year over year. As we saw with PayPal stats from Thanksgiving and Black Friday, mobile shopping volume is increasing by over 500 percent this year.

Mobile shopping was actually led by Apple devices, with the iPhone and iPad ranking one and two for consumers shopping on mobile devices (5.4 percent and 4.8 percent respectively). Android came in third at 4.1 percent. Collectively iPhone and iPad accounted for 10.2 percent of all online retail traffic on Black Friday.

As predicted by eBay, Google and others, tablets were a major platform for shoppers this year. IBM says that shoppers using the iPad led to more retail purchases more often per visit than other mobile devices with conversion rates reaching 4.6 percent compared to 2.8 percent for overall mobile devices.

IBM took a deep dive on conversion rates of mobile shoppers vs. online shoppers and traffic from social networks. Mobile shoppers demonstrated a laser focus that surpassed that of other online shoppers with a 41.3 percent bounce rate on mobile devices versus online shopping rates of 33.1 percent. Shoppers referred from Social Networks generated 0.53 percent of all online sales on Black Friday. Facebook led the pack, accounting for 75 percent of all traffic from social networks.

There was actually a 110 percent increase in discussion volume around Black Friday sales on social networks compared to 2010, with conversations centralized around sharing tips on how to avoid the rush. Topics included out-of-stock concerns, waiting times and parking, and a spike in positive sentiment around Cyber-Monday sales.

Department stores sales were up 59.0 percent from this time last year, mainly because of the strong deals and online shipping incentives. Home goods also reported a 48.8 percent increase in sales from Black Friday 2010 and apparel sales were also strong this holiday with Black Friday numbers showing an increase of 47.2 percent over 2010. Health and Beauty online sales were up 34.2 percent year over year.

Considering the strength of online sales so far, it should be interesting to see if Cyber Monday, which tends to be a peak day for online retail, can surpass the sales from Black Friday.

It looks like will be a joyful holiday season for many online retailers this year. comScore is reporting that holiday retail e-commerce spending for the first 20 days of the November to December 2011 season is already up 14 percent from the same period last year. Wednesday, November 16 was the heaviest online spending day of the season to date at $688 million.

comScore is forecasting that total online retail spending for the holiday season will reach $37.6 billion, 15 percent increase from last year’s season. For background, the 2010 holiday shopping period saw a 12 percent increase from 2009.

In a recent survey conducted with consumers, holiday shoppers say that retailers’ promotional activity for the early part of the season has increased in relation to last year. Specifically, 33 percent of respondents indicated that they are seeing more discounts, sales and promotions vs. last year compared to just 7 percent who said there were fewer.

Unsurprisingly, one of the major incentives for online purchases is free shipping. When asked how important free shipping is for making an online purchase this holiday season, 76 percent of consumers said that it was important and 47 percent indicated they would abandon a purchase if they got to checkout and found that free shipping was not included. And 40 percent of retail e-commerce purchases in Q3 2011 included free shipping. This is expected to spike in Q4 of 2011.

comScore’s chairman Gian Fulgoni attributes the increase to more consumers looking online for better deals, and the shipping convenience considering the current economic conditions. He adds that there is a shift happening from offline retail to online retail channels for price comparisons and browsing. This could also contribute to more conversions on online retail sites.

And we know mobile shopping will be on the rise as well—we’ll start seeing mobile transaction numbers coming in from retailers and companies like eBay, PayPal following Thanksgiving.

We’ll get a clearer picture of just how strong this holiday shopping season will be, both for brick and mortar and online retailers, following Thanksgiving, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday. Stay tuned.

After Q3 2011 brought a 13 percent increase in e-commerce sales, Forrester is estimating that U.S. online holiday sales will grow 15 percent this year to nearly $60 billion. The study reports that this increase will take place because of the increase in consumer-use of tablet computers for shopping combined with a growth in online holiday deals.

Of course, it’s surprising that there would be a significant growth in holiday retail spending considering the economy and market volatility. But Forrester says that retailers are taking advantage of the ‘price-savvy’ shopper and presenting more lucrative deals for online shopping and free shipping offers, especially on high-volume shopping days like Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

The report shows that 58 percent of Americans say they are more price-conscious today than they were a year ago and nearly half believe they find better values online. And 50 percent of Americans who own a tablet use the device to research products for purchase with 30 percent of smartphone owners using their mobile device to research products for purchase at least monthly (which is a 30 percent increase in just the past year). And more and more online retailers will be offering better shopping experiences on mobile and tablet devices t take advantage of these trends.

Forrester also says that 12 percent of the total growth in sales will result from an increase in spending per buyer as opposed to more buyers entering the market. In January, comScore reported that 2010 online holiday spending reached a record $33 billion, which was up 12 percent from 2009. Forrester estimates last year’s spending at just over $50 billion.

With Thanksgiving, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday only weeks away, we’ll see soon if shoppers flock online and to mobile platforms for deals and savings, as is predicted. While the current technology trends and proliferation of deals could boost e-spending, even weather could be a factor in pushing holiday sales to record levels.

E-commerce spending continues to rise as more consumers look to online retail channels to purchase goods. comScore just released its online retail numbers for the third quarter of 2011, and online retail spending in the U.S. reached $36.3 billion for the quarter, up 13 percent versus year ago.

This is the eighth consecutive quarter of year-over-year growth and fourth consecutive quarter of double-digit growth rates in e-commerce. In Q2 of this year, spending was up 14 percent from last year.

The top-performing online product categories were Digital Content & Subscriptions, Event Tickets, Jewelry & Watches, Consumer Electronics and Computer Software. Spending in each category grew at least 15 percent compared to a year ago.

comScore says the growth in overal spending in the quarter was due to an increase in the number of buyers, which is up 22 percent. According to the report, 74 percent of all Internet users mad at least one online purchase in the quarter. That’s up from 70 percent in Q2 of this year.

And 40 percent of e-commerce transactions included free shipping. Of course, this is down from a peak of 49 percent in Q4 2010 but free shipping offers tend to peak during the holiday season.

Despite the unrest in the financial markets, comScore still believes in the ‘continued health’ of the holiday shopping season. Especially as more consumers rely on online shopping deals, free shipping, comparison pricing products and more, online shopping may continue to be strong in Q4 of 2011.

Of course, we’ll start seeing signs of whether holiday spending has seen an uptick soon. Now that we’re weeks away from Thanksgiving, Black Friday and Cyber Monday, it will be interesting to see if the current state of the economy has any effect on spending this year.