“After announcing some early post-Christmas numbers, comScore just released its final analysis of U.S. online holiday spending for 2012: shoppers bought a total of $42.3 billion worth of goods online from November 1 to December 31. That’s up 14 percent from the $37.2 billion comScore reported last year, but a bit lower than expected as shoppers slowed down around mid-December.
While the numbers were up across the board, comScore registered especially strong increases in online shopping on Thanksgiving Day (up 32 percent to $622 million) and “Free Shipping Day” on December 17 (up 76 percent to just over $1 billion). While Christmas Day itself was rather slow with $288 million spent on online shopping, even that number was up 36 percent, though it couldn’t make up for a generally soft end of December.
