Holiday Shoppers Online in Droves

Consumers spent $3.5 billion shopping online in November, up 55% from 2002, according a report from eSpending.

Shoppers started early this year, with 51% of respondents indicating they started shopping last month, versus 43% during the same time last year, according to the eSpending report from Goldman, Sachs & Co., Harris Interactive and Nielsen/NetRatings.

Apparel leads the purchases with $1.6 billion. Books, videos/DVDs, music and toys/video games are also popular items. Shoppers spent $758 million on videos and DVDs in November, a 133% increase from last year. About $761 million was spent on books, up 61%. The music category pulled in $402 million, a 57% jump, while toys and video games increased 32% to $875 million.

Search engines and shopping portals played a significant role in online shopping, the study found.

Some 37% of shoppers used Google to search for online retailers. EBay followed with 27% and Yahoo garnered 25% of consumers searching for holiday purchases. Fifty-one percent went directly to a retail Web site by typing in the URL. Bookmarks for specific sites were used by 21%.

The eSpending report is based on a weekly national survey of between 800 and 1,700 online shoppers randomly chosen from Harris Interactive's online panel of survey respondents. More than 4,700 responded to the November survey.