US online retail spend up 13%

Options and free shipping offers made buying goods online too convenient to pass up last year, Transworld Business reveals.

US consumers put their digital wallets to work to the tune of $161.5 billion for all of 2011, and $49.7 billion in the last three months alone.

Altogether, e-commerce spending in 2011 was up 13% from 2010, with online shopping surging 14% year-over-year in the fourth quarter, according to market research firm comScore.

“The fourth quarter of 2011 capped off what was yet another strong year for online retail, one in which every quarter achieved double-digit increases versus the prior year,” Venture Beat quotes comScore chairman Gian Fulgoni as saying.

“Price and convenience continue to be the critical value drivers for e-commerce, and unless those conditions change, we can expect to see more channel-shifting to online in 2012 and perhaps even an acceleration in the current growth trend.”

Fourth-quarter growth was fuelled by 10 different $1 billion-plus online spending days, including Cyber Monday, which lived up to its name and accounted for $1.251 billion in e-commerce spending, comScore says.

The company partially attributed growth to consumers' growing predilection for shopping via tablets or smartphones, a clear trend for 2011 and beyond.