America spends over a billion in online shopping on November 23 alone

Nov 26, 2012 19:11 GMT  ·  By

ComScore is reporting on retail e-commerce spending in the U.S. for the first 23 days of the November – December 2012 holiday season, placing Apple Inc. on the fifth position among the most visited retailers (online).

$13.7 billion has been spent online for the holiday season-to-date – 16-percent growth compared to last year.

For Black Friday, consumers spent $1.042 billion online, marking “the heaviest online spending day to date in 2012 and representing a 26-percent increase versus Black Friday 2011,” reports comScore.

On Thanksgiving Day, Americans spent no less than $633 million – a 32-percent increase from last year, despite Thanksgiving being a traditionally lighter day for holiday shopping.

In measuring the digital world, comScore found that 57.3 million Americans visited retail sites on Black Friday, with Amazon ranking as the most visited online retail store (no surprise there), “posting the highest year-over-year visitor growth rate among the top five retailers,” according to the report.

The second place was occupied by Walmart (whose staffers sometimes enjoy tossing iPads around to watch them break), followed by Best Buy, Target, and finally Apple.

comScore chairman, Gian Fulgoni, said, “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.”

“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,” Fulgoni added.

“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,” he also mentioned.

Fulgoni says comScore is looking forward to Cyber Monday, with Thanksgiving now behind and most consumers returning to work.

The comScore chairman expects this year’s Cyber Monday to be “the heaviest online shopping day of the season with sales approaching $1.5 billion or even higher.”