Black Friday Billion: E-commerce spending surges beyond $1 billion for first time

comScore today reported U.S. retail e-commerce spending for the first 23 days of the November – December 2012 holiday season. For the holiday season-to-date, $13.7 billion has been spent online, marking a 16-percent increase versus the corresponding days last year. Black Friday (November 23) saw $1.042 billion in online sales, making it the heaviest online spending day to date in 2012 and representing a 26-percent increase versus Black Friday 2011. Thanksgiving Day (November 22), while traditionally a lighter day for online holiday spending, achieved a strong 32-percent increase to $633 million.

*Corresponding days based on corresponding shopping days (November 3 thru November 25, 2011)

“Despite the frenzy of media coverage surrounding the importance of Black Friday in the brick-and-mortar world, we continue to see this shopping day become more and more prominent in the e-commerce channel – particularly among those who prefer to avoid crowds at the stores,” said comScore chairman, Gian Fulgoni. “With Black Friday online sales up 26 percent and surpassing $1 billion for the first time, coupled with early reports indicating that Black Friday sales in retail stores were down 1.8 percent, we can now confidently call it amulti-channelmarketing phenomenon. Meanwhile, Thanksgiving Day – which has historically been a lighter online holiday shopping day – continues to gain steam and grew well ahead of the current pace as more consumers opted to kick off their holiday shopping immediately after the big meal to take advantage of aggressive retailer promotions. With Thanksgiving now behind us and most consumers returning to work tomorrow, we can look forward with anticipation to Cyber Monday, which according to norms we’ve observed over the past three years should be the heaviest online shopping day of the season with sales approaching $1.5 billion or even higher.”

57.3 million Americans visited online retail sites on Black Friday, representing an increase of 18 percent versus year ago. Amazon ranked as the most visited online retail site on Black Friday while also posting the highest year-over-year visitor growth rate among the top five retailers.

For the holiday season-to-date, Digital Content & Subscriptions is leading the way as the top-growing online retail product category (up 29 percent versus year ago) as the rapid adoption of smartphones, tablets and e-readers continues to drive demand for digital books, audio and video content. Toys are also performing well online thus far with a gain of 27 percent, followed by Consumer Packaged Goods (up 23 percent), Video Game Consoles & Accessories (up 18 percent) and Consumer Electronics (up 18 percent).

*Corresponding days based on corresponding shopping days (November 3 thru November 25, 2011)

The Apparel & Accessories category had a very strong Black Friday to rank as the #1 category for online spending on that day, accounting for more than a quarter of all dollars spent. The category has historically ranked #2 behind Computer Hardware, as it did on Black Friday 2011.

Source: comScore, Inc.