Holiday Shopping, Online Retailer | featured news

Holiday online retail spending for the 47 days of the shopping season through December 17 totaled $27.46 billion, according to new data from ComScore, up 12% from the comparable period a year ago. Sales in the latest week were $5.15 billion, up 14% from the comparable week last year.

U.S. online retail sales through the first 40 days of the 2010 holiday shopping season are up 12% from a year ago, according to a Sunday update from ComScore.

Online retailers experienced a sales surge Monday, capping off a holiday shopping week in which more Americans than ever decided to skip the mall. Early estimates indicated overall sales gains of between 15% and 21% for "Cyber Monday," compared to a year earlier.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is going for the jugular in the holiday retailing war, announcing Thursday that it will offer free shipping on nearly 60,000 online items _ with no minimum purchase requirement.

We heard strong reports for online traffic Black Friday and Cyber Monday, but today, comScore added definitive spending numbers that indicate tha

Retail Web sites kept amping up the deals Monday, the first day after Thanksgiving weekend's strong online sales, to try to maintain the momentum.