Researchers at comScore are expecting a solid online shopping season, but another research group isn't so sure.
For the first 18 days of November, comScore reported more than $7bn in online retail spending. That's up 17 percent over the same period last year, which brought in $6bn. The growth happened even though the first week or so of the month showed only modest gains compared with the year earlier. Roughly the last half of the period studied grew by more than 20 percent compared with last November, comScore found.
ComScore is predicting that shoppers will spend $29.5bn during the months of November and December this year. That would be a 20 percent increase over last year, which brought in $24.6bn.
However, another researcher is warning that online spending might not reach the growth levels seen in recent years. A study conducted by Nielsen Online found that shoppers expect to spend the same portion of their holiday budget online as they did in 2006. But because overall spending might be down due to broader economic factors, the actual dollar amount spent online might not live up to the historical 20 percent growth, Nielsen warned.
Source: Computerworld, http://computerworld.com