Although online spending reached $25.5 billion this holiday season, it was down 3% compared to the same shopping days in 2007, according to data compiled by online purchasing behavior monitoring company comScore.
This marks the first time comScore has seen negative growth rates for the holiday season since it began tracking e-commerce in 2001, said comScore chairman Gian Fulgoni in a statement.
“The combination of having five fewer shopping days between Thanksgiving and Christmas and the severe economic headwinds faced by consumers has made this a really tough season for retailers, both offline and online,” Fulgoni said.
ComScore monitored sales from Nov. 1 to Dec. 23 for the report. E-commerce was down 4% to $36.8 billion for the fourth quarter of Oct. 1 to Dec. 28.
As for traffic, comScore’s research supports Amazon’s report that it had its best holiday season ever. Between Dec. 1 and Dec. 27, Amazon’s unique visitors were up 7% to 76.2 million. Apple saw its traffic grow 19% to 35 million, Hewlett Packard was up 28% to 19.4 million and Wal-Mart up 4% to 51.5%.
Though comScore saw overall unique visits across e-commerce up 5% to nearly 180 million, troubled electronics retailer Circuit City saw a 21% fall to 15.9 million, while Dell’s unique visitors fell 17% to 14.3 million.