According to the latest Forrester Online Retail Index, total US spending on online sales increased from $4.9 billion in November to $5.7 billion in December. The number of households shopping online increased from 16.8 million in November to 18.7 million in December and consumers spent an average of $304 per person in December, compared with $293 in November.
“We realised we had overestimated the number of shoppers that had been projected in the latter part of 2000. Once the 2000 sales figures were amended, it supported our previous analysis that online sales were up from last year,” said Christopher Kelley, analyst at Forrester. “Despite a difficult economic time, online shopping is here to stay.”