Online Retails Sales Drop 3% In Holiday Season

January 1, 2009 7:16 a.m. EST

New York, NY (AHN) - Online retail sales dropped in the latest holiday season for the first time since the last recession in 2001, after maintaining double digit rise for the last few years, according to a report.

Internet research firm comScore said in its report that the online holiday spending moved down by 3 percent in the 2008 from the same period last year.

"This marks the first time we've seen negative growth rates for the holiday season since we began tracking e-commerce in 2001," comScore chairman Gian Fulgoni said in a statement released late Wednesday.

"The combination of having five fewer shopping days between Thanksgiving and Christmas and the severe economic headwinds faced by consumers has made this a really tough season for retailers, both offline and online."

The market analysts on Wall Street expect the online retail sales to drop by 4 percent in the fourth quarter on shorter post-Thanksgiving shopping period and declining consumer spending with deepening recession.

The net number of orders from Nov. 1 to Dec. 23 dropped to $25.5 billion, compared to $26.3 billion worth orders reported in the same period last year, according to ComScore,

The report added that the total retail sales from Oct. 1 to Dec. 28 declined by 4 percent, to $36.8 billion from $38.4 billion a year earlier in the same period.

Online holiday sales increased by almost 19 percent in 2007 and more than 25 percent in 2006 from the year prior, according to comScore data.

The online sites that saw the largest increase in unique visitors include Apple Inc. (NasdaqGS: AAPL) with 19 percent to 35 million, Amazon.com (NasdaqGS: AMZN) with 7 percent gains to 76 million and Hewlett Packard Co. (NYSE: HPQ) reported a 28 percent rise in visitors, to 19.4 million from 15.2 million.

Meanwhile, the higher number of total visitors flocked to eBay (NasdaqGS: EBAY), which reported 85.4 million, with an actual drop of 4 percent from the year earlier gains of 88.9 million.