Cyber Monday Marks Heaviest Online Shopping Day In History

Online spending on Cyber Monday set the record as the heaviest online spending day in history at $1.028 billion, according to comScore, a digital monitoring and marketing agency. Sales were up 16 percent over 2009, although the growth was driven primarily by an increase in average spending per buyer (up 12 percent) rather than an increase in the number of buyers (up by 4 percent).

“Cyber Monday was a historic day for e-commerce as we saw daily spending surpass $1 billion for the first time,” said comScore chairman Gian Fulgoni. “The online holiday shopping season has clearly gotten off to a very strong start, which is welcome news. At the same time, it’s important to note that some of the early strength in consumer spending is almost certainly the result of retailers’ heavier-than-normal promotional and discounting activity at this early point in the season. So, while we anticipate that there will be more billion-dollar spending days ahead as we get deeper into the season, only time will tell if overall consumer online spending remains at the elevated levels we’ve seen thus far.”

Amazon saw the most traffic on Cyber Monday, according to the Brand Keys Holiday Survey of top 10 most visited retailers. Walmart and Apple tied for second, followed by Target, Zappos, Best Buy and Dell, Kohls, Overstock and QVC, Lands End and L.L. Bean, J.C. Penney, and Macy’s.