data from comScore. This is the first time online holiday sales have dropped since comScore started collecting e-commerce data in 2001.
The numbers are barely above those included in the report on last-minute shopping that comScore released a week ago, and for good reason -- that report already covered the period from Nov. 1 to Dec. 21; the new numbers only add two more days. But with the holiday season over, we can now make an apples-to-apples comparison between 2007 and 2008. E-commerce sites brought in $25.54 billion during this year's holiday season, compared to $26.33 billion last year. That drop comes despite an increase on key shopping days like Black Friday (Nov. 28) and Cyber Monday (Dec. 1).
What's behind the stinginess? Probably a combination of the bad economy and the fact that there were five fewer shopping days between Thanksgiving and Christmas.
Despite the decrease, many of the top e-commerce sites saw their traffic go up compared to last year: Top site eBay fell 4 percent, but Amazon was up 7 percent, Wal-Mart was up 4 percent, and Apple was up 19 percent. Amazon earlier said it set a single-day record on Dec. 15. But since the online retailer only shared the number of items sold, not the dollar value, I wouldn't be surprised if people bought cheaper items, bringing Amazon less money.
