Online retail sales today were up 20 percent from a year earlier as of 12 p.m. New York time, as shoppers flocked to the Web for deals on so-called Cyber Monday, according to International Business Machines Corp.
Amazon.com Inc., EBay Inc. and other Internet retailers pay close attention to buying on the Monday after Thanksgiving, when many people step up Web shopping for holiday gifts. Online purchasing today may rise to $1.2 billion from $1.03 billion last year, according to ComScore Inc, a market-research firm. Shares of Amazon and EBay climbed.
Internet sellers offered early discounts and set up pop-up locations leading up to Cyber Monday, aiming to grab a bigger portion of holiday sales by luring consumers from bricks-and- mortar retailers. Sales on the Web and in malls surged over the weekend, with consumers spending a record $52.4 billion in a hunt for bargains, the National Retail Federation said.
“Last year, Cyber Monday was the heaviest day of online spending ever, with sales exceeding $1 billion, and we fully expect to see another record set this year,” ComScore Chairman Gian Fulgoni said in a statement.
Shares of Seattle-based Amazon jumped 6 percent to $193.28 at 1 p.m. New York time, the biggest gain in more than three months. EBay, based in San Jose, California, rose 4.8 percent to $29.57, its largest increase since September.
E-commerce sales in November and December will rise 15 percent to $37.6 billion, Reston, Virginia-based ComScore estimated. The researcher said Black Friday, or the day after Thanksgiving, brought $816 million in online sales.
Shopping from wireless devices is also on the rise this year, Armonk, New York-based IBM said in an e-mailed statement today, with 13.3 percent of consumers using a mobile device to visit a retail site so far, and 8.5 percent using one to make a purchase. Mobile shopping is forecast to accelerate later in the day, IBM said.
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