Two separate reports released Wednesday show a healthy rise in ecommerce sales for the 2010 holiday season.
MasterCard Advisors SpendingPulse, a macroeconomic report tracking national retail and services sales, says that ecommerce grew 17.6% year over year in December, the highest year-over-year increase since December 2007.
Much of the growth was driven by online apparel, which grew 28.2% year over year, thanks to strong showings in apparel, children’s clothing and footwear.
Web sales of electronics were up a solid 14%, while online jewelry sales rose 5.9%, the report said.
Meanwhile, online measurement company ComScore said ecommerce sales rose 12% to $32.6 billion between Nov. 1 and Dec. 31.
With that good news, there is some bad. ComScore reported last week that ecommerce sales between Nov. 1 and Dec. 24 had been up 13% to $30.8 billion, which indicates a weak week after Christmas.
But the 12% uptick is still slightly better than the 11% increase it had predicted for the two-month period, ComScore said.