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Cyber Monday Second-Best Day Ever for Online Retail »
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Cyber Monday Second-Best Day Ever for Online Retail

Cyber Monday accounted for $846 million in online spending, up 15% from last year - and the second-highest amount spent in online retail since the $881 million spent on Green Monday 2007, according to comScore, writes Retailer Daily.

Moreover, e-commerce spending for the four-day period from Black Friday through Cyber Monday jumped 13%, as both weekend days and Monday each achieved double-digit gains, comScore said.

For the holiday season to date - the first 31 days of the November-December 2008 holiday season - some $12.03 billion has been spent online, marking a 2% decline versus the corresponding days last year, comScore said.

“Mark Twain might have said, ‘Rumors of the death of online holiday shopping have been greatly exaggerated,’” said comScore Chairman Gian Fulgoni. “Consumers are clearly responding positively to retailers’ aggressive online discounts. With Cyber Monday promotions beginning in earnest over the Thanksgiving weekend, consumers have finally begun to open their wallets, setting off a streak of four consecutive days of extremely strong growth. This is an extremely encouraging development for retailers and we can but hope that their aggressive discounting has still left room for profits.”

Consumers Seeing Less Foot Traffic in Stores

Four in ten consumers surveyed (39%) said there seemed to be fewer people out shopping in retail stores this year than last year, and only 7% thought there were more, according to the most recent comScore holiday retail survey, conducted from November 28-December 1.

More than half (51%) of consumers surveyed said the level of promotions and discounts is higher this year than last year, and just 12% said there appeared to be fewer, suggesting that retailers are having to be more aggressive in discounting to spur consumer spending.