Online retail spending surged to $50B in Q4

Mobile shopping options and free shipping offers made buying goods online too convenient to pass up last year.

Consumers put their digital wallets to work to the tune of $161.5 billion for all of 2011, and $49.7 billion in the last three months alone.

Altogether, e-commerce spending in 2011 was up 13 percent from 2010, with online shopping surging 14 percent year-over-year in the fourth quarter, according to market research firm comScore.

“The fourth quarter … Continue Reading

Sorry Facebook, mobile users just want to text

Mobile content usage spanning everything from downloading apps to browser and social network usage continues to escalate, but nothing is taking off quite like texting.

Nearly 75 percent of all U.S. mobile subscribers now send text messages, according to new data from analytics firm comScore.

The data, gathered from a monthly online survey of 30,000 mobile subscribers ages 13 and up, reflects an ongoing shift in the changing behaviors of the more than 234 million … Continue Reading

Top retailers saw big holiday traffic gains thanks to Facebook marketing (research)

“Facebook makes our life so much better,” Buddy Media CEO Michael Lazerow said at the Digital Life Design conference in Munich today.

The “our” he speaks of may actually apply more directly to brands embracing the social network for social marketing.

New data from comScore, revealed during the Monday morning presentation, highlights traffic gains big name brands recently experienced thanks to a combination of paid and earned media efforts on Facebook.

Mega-retailer Walmart, which launched … Continue Reading

Texting still king for the 234M US mobile device users

There are 91.4 million people in the United States who use smartphones, according to a new report by comScore, but how are they using their phones? Texting, app usage and listening to music top the charts.

For three months ending in November, over 234 million mobile devices were used by 13 year olds and older, says comScore. Smartphones make up around 39 percent of that group. Android is still winning smartphone market share, up 3.1 … Continue Reading

What recession? Holiday shopping online finishes at a record $35.3B

Online holiday shopping for 2011 finished at an all-time high of $35.3 billion, up 15 percent from last year’s sales figures.

According to comScore, which tracked online consumer spending between November 1 and the week beginning December 25, year-over-year sales figures for online retailers were higher for every single week for the final 56 holiday shopping days of 2011.

“Holiday e-commerce spending has remained strong throughout the season,” said comScore chairman Gian Fulgoni in a … Continue Reading

Nielsen and comScore reach settlement over online measurement patents

Nielsen and comScore, two of the largest research/ratings firms, have settled a dispute over measurement patents, the companies announced today in a joint statement.

Nielsen is best known for its television program ratings, which measure the size and demographic of an audience for specific shows. More recently, the company has branched off to include online measurement of content, display advertising, social interaction and more. It faces competition from online research firm comScore. In March, Nielsen … Continue Reading

U.S. sees its heaviest online shopping week in history

The U.S. saw its heaviest week in online shopping ever, with consumers spending $6.3 billion in the week ended Dec. 18, up 14 percent from a year ago.

Market research firm comScore said that e-commerce spending to date for the first 48 days of the holiday season hit $32 billion, up 15 percent from the corresponding days last year. With two weeks to go, it’s already clear this will be the busiest holiday shopping season … Continue Reading

Consumers will lose $10M to cyber crime this holiday season

Over $10 million will be intercepted by cyber criminals this holiday season, as consumers turn toward the Internet for their presents.

Online shopping around the holidays has increased 10 percent since the same time in 2010, to around $30.9 billion dollars spent thus far in the season, according to a report by comScore. Specifically days like Cyber Monday, which raked in $1.25 billion, and Free Shipping Day, which totalled around $1.72 billion, draw people away … Continue Reading

E-commerce sales hit $25B, up 15 percent

U.S. online holiday spending is holding strong, with e-commerce sales reaching $25 billion, up 15 percent from a year ago.

Market research firm comScore said that spending for the first 39 days of the November-December selling season were $24.6 billion. The most recent week ending Dec. 9 reached $5.9 billion, up 15 percent from the corresponding week a year ago.

Last week saw three days each exceeding $1 billion in sales. For the whole season, … Continue Reading

Cloudera upgrades Hadoop management tools, offers free version for startups

Apache Hadoop-focused management service Cloudera has considerably updated its Cloudera Enterprise software and will begin offering a free version of Cloudera Manager that startups can use, the company announced this morning.

Cloudera makes it possible for companies like Samsung, Aol and Groupon to manage and mine loads of unstructured and structured data. It provides its own spin on Hadoop’s powerful open-source data management software and couples it with IT support and management tools. With the … Continue Reading

Holiday e-commerce spending grows 15 percent to $20B

U.S. online holiday spending hit $19.6 billion in the first 34 days of the November-December shopping season, up 15 percent from a year ago.

Market research firm comScore said the most recent week saw three days eclipse $1 billion in spending each, led by the record-setting Cyber Monday at $1.25 billion.

Growth slowed somewhat in the later part of the work week, but strengthened on the weekend, with sales up 17 percent. For the week … Continue Reading

More than half of mobile purchases are made from the home, trust in mobile growing

Mobile purchases just won’t quit. People are trusting their smartphones more every day and are buying their goods from an unexpected place: their home.

We heard a lot of about mobile shopping as Cyber Monday rolled through. Many flocked to their phones and tablets to grab the good deals, whether they were near a computer or not. Cyber Monday hit an all time high of $1.25 billion spent, and PayPal reported seeing record differences between … Continue Reading

Holiday e-commerce season gets off to a record start

U.S. shoppers are spending a lot of money after a record-setting Cyber Monday, according to data from the first week of sales after the season kick-off.

Market research firm comScore said Sunday that shoppers spent $6 billion on Monday through Friday last week. Typically, about 40 percent of spending happens in the last two months of the year.

“Cyber Monday kicked the week off with a bang as consumers opened their wallets to the tune … Continue Reading

At $1.25B, Cyber Monday was biggest ecommerce shopping day in history

This year’s Cyber Monday was the biggest day in online spending ever, with $1.25 billion spent at online retailers, up 22 percent from a year ago.

Market researcher comScore reported that the first 28 days of November generated $15 billion in online sales, up 15 percent from $13 billion in the corresponding days a year ago. This year’s Cyber Monday — as the first Monday after Thanksgiving is called — was the second day ever … Continue Reading

Cyber Monday sales may reach $1.2B, mobile shoppers will double

When it comes to made-up online shopping holidays, Cyber Monday is still expected to be the reigning champion this year.

Cyber Monday sales may reach $1.2 billion this year, reports the LA Times, up from over $1 billion last year. 122 million Americans are expected to take part in Cyber Monday deals, and the number of consumers using their smartphones to shop is expected to double, according to a recent survey by BigResearch.

By comparison, … Continue Reading

Black Friday e-commerce sales were up 26 percent from last year

Black Friday electronic commerce sales were $816 million, up 26 percent from a year ago, according to comScore.

The number underscores the relentless march of digital commerce as users prefer to surf the malls of cyberspace rather than brave crowds in physical stores. ComScore said that e-commerce sales for the first 25 days of the holiday season — Nov. 1 to Nov. 25 — were $12.7 billion in the U.S., up 15 percent from $11.1 … Continue Reading

Online holiday shopping jumps 14 percent

Thousands of people are taking to the streets to protest the sad state of the economy, but online, it appears that business is booming.

Online shoppers are spending more than ever, dropping $9.67 billion between Nov. 1 and Nov. 20, according to a new comScore report. That’s a 14 percent increase over the same period last year.

By the time the dust settles at the end of December, comScore, predicts that online shopping will be … Continue Reading

What’s more trustworthy: DoubleClick’s AdPlanner or comScore?

A handful of articles this morning argued against the validity of a recently released DoubleClick AdPlanner report showing Facebook reached a trillion page views in June. Both CNN and TG Daily cite contrary data obtained by digital measurement firm comScore, which claims Facebook only reached 467 billion page views that month.

The reason for the large discrepancy has to do with the different measurement methods used by comScore and Google-owned DoubleClick.

The DoubleClick AdPlanner measures … Continue Reading

QR code lovers skew male, young & affluent

Of the 14 million mobile phone users who scanned QR codes in June 2011, a full 60 percent were male.

According to data in a comScore report released today, most QR code-scanning consumers are between the ages of 18 and 34, and around a third are in households making $100,000 or more per year.

And for all the flack the print industry gets for being behind the digital times, almost half of all QR code … Continue Reading

Google+ has 25M unique visitors, but it’s not fair to compare it to Facebook

Google+, the new social network from Google, is growing at a gargantuan pace. The social destination has now hit 25 million unique visitors, reaching that milestone faster than Facebook, Twitter or other social networks, according to new comScore data.

Social pundits are keeping a close eye on Google+ to see how it disrupts the current social framework comprised of Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other networks. Tracking unique visitor counts helps assess just how widespread content … Continue Reading