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Despite a sluggish economy and the uncertainty raised by terrorist attacks in the United States, worldwide online holiday spending is expected to soar this year, reaching $25.3 billion, according to researcher GartnerG2, a unit of Gartner.

Improved customer satisfaction and experience are expected to drive the online retail shopping spree, which is expected to result in a 39 percent increase in worldwide sales over last year, GartnerG2 said Monday.

While some expected that online shopping would slow following the September 11 terrorist attacks in the United States, which managed to kick the sagging U.S. economy while it was down, the attacks had a minor impact on planned spending, according to GartnerG2.

In a survey of 16,449 U.S. residents conducted September 26 through October 7, 80.5 percent of respondents said that they would shop at the same rate as they did last year. And while 13.6 of those surveyed by GartnerG2 said that they would spend less online than they did last year, 6 percent said that they would spend more.

As of mid-2001, more than 71 million U.S. adults made online purchases within a three-month period, 23 percent more than last year, GartnerG2 said. North American fourth-quarter online sales revenue is expected to come in at $11.86 billion, a 30 percent increase over last year, GartnerG2 predicted.

International Sales Up

While North America accounts for the lion's share of business-to-consumer online holiday sales, sales outside of the region are expected to increase their share from 50 percent last year to 53 percent this year, GartnerG2 added.

Sales outside North America will be helped by European e-tailers' improved Web site functionality and more flexible delivery times and methods, GartnerG2 analysts said. Additionally, more brick and mortar companies are venturing online in the Asia/Pacific region, the researcher reported.

GartnerG2 forecast that European online sales would reach $8.58 billion in the fourth quarter of this year, a 39.6 percent increase over last year, whereas Asia/Pacific sales will grow 53.4 percent to total some $2.46 billion. Japan was expected to bring in $1.4 billion in holiday shopping for 2001, 68 percent more than last year, while the rest of the world will increase its holiday shopping by 90.1 percent to tally up $990 million in online holiday sales this year, GartnerG2 said.

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