Online shopping continues to soar
A new report from comScore shows that people spent nearly $34 billion on online shopping in Q1 2010, up 10% from this time last year.
It is the first time that online retailing in the US has shown double-digit growth rates since the second quarter of 2008, providing evidence that the market is on the road to recovery.
“The first quarter returned the U.S. retail e-commerce market to healthy double-digit growth rates,” Gian Fulgoni, chairman of comScore, said. “While these spending gains provide reason for optimism, we should note that upper-income households are currently shouldering much of the growth.
“Should the economy falter in the second half of the year and upper-income consumers return to a savings mode, we could still see growth decelerate. But for the time being, this momentum is encouraging.”
Upper-income customers spent more than $100,000 online in the first three months of the year, driving most of the first quarter growth.
comScore’s report also found that online-only retailers continued to gain e-commerce market share from multichannel retailers, and larger online retailers continued to generate higher growth rates than smaller online shops.