The online holiday shopping season is off to a good start.
Black Friday this year was the heaviest online spending day to date in 2010, according to comScore. It also saw a 9% increase in online spending compared to the same day in 2009.
"Although Black Friday is known for the flurry of activity occurring in brick-and-mortar retail stores, online shopping is increasingly becoming the refuge of those preferring to avoid the crowds and long lines," said Gian Fulgoni, comScore chairman, in a statement. "Interestingly, we are also seeing consumers beginning to buy online in a more meaningful way on Thanksgiving Day, which has historically seen low buying activity."
The uptick in e-commerce last Friday bodes well for comScore's prediction last week that online holiday spending in the U.S. will increase by 11% this year.
So, where were online shoppers spending their money last Friday?
According to comScore, many of them were shopping at Amazon.com, which saw a 25% increase in unique U.S. visitors to its site on Black Friday compared to the same day last year.
Actually, Amazon.com and three other sites -- Walmart, Target, and BestBuy -- all surpassed 4 million unique visitors on Black Friday.
However, not all of them faired as well as Amazon.com. Target saw a 9% increase in unique visitors and BestBuy saw a 1% increase. Walmart had a 1% decrease, according to comScore.
Sharon Gaudin covers the Internet and Web 2.0, emerging technologies, and desktop and laptop chips for Computerworld. Follow Sharon on Twitter at @sgaudin or subscribe to Sharon's RSS feed. Her e-mail address is sgaudin@computerworld.com.
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This story, "Amazon Dominates Online Holiday Shopping" was originally published by Computerworld.