Online sales decline 3% during holiday season

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Nervous consumers weren’t just skipping trips to the mall this holiday season -- many also were scaling back their online purchases.

Online spending reached $25.5 billion during the Nov. 1 through Dec. 23 period, down 3% compared with the year-earlier period, according to a ComScore report released Tuesday. The data tracker, which had been expecting flat sales, said it was the first time it had seen negative growth rates for the holiday season since it began tracking e-commerce in 2001.

‘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,’ ComScore Chairman Gian Fulgoni said.

Online shoppers may have spent less, but more of them went window shopping at some websites during the month, through Christmas Eve. Such sites as Amazon.com and Walmart.com saw year-over-year increases in the volume of unique visitors to their websites, ComScore said. EBay.com recorded a 4% decline in the number of visitors compared with a year earlier, but it remained the most-visited retail site, with 85.4 million visitors.

The data tracker also found that the heaviest shopping day of the season was Tuesday, Dec. 9, with $887 million in sales.

-- Andrea Chang