Amazon Leads Black Friday Online Spending Increase

Computerworld — The online holiday shopping season is off to a good start.

Online researcher comScore reported Sunday that U.S. online shoppers spent $648 million on Black Friday alone. Black Friday, which is the day after Thanksgiving, is the official kickoff to the lucrative holiday shopping season.

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Black Friday this year was the heaviest online spending day to date in 2010, according to comScore. It also saw a 9% increase in online spending compared to the same day in 2009.

"Although Black Friday is known for the flurry of activity occurring in brick-and-mortar retail stores, online shopping is increasingly becoming the refuge of those preferring to avoid the crowds and long lines," said Gian Fulgoni, comScore chairman, in a statement. "Interestingly, we are also seeing consumers beginning to buy online in a more meaningful way on Thanksgiving Day, which has historically seen low buying activity."

The uptick in e-commerce last Friday bodes well for comScore's prediction last week that online holiday spending in the U.S. will increase by 11% this year.

So, where were online shoppers spending their money last Friday?

According to comScore, many of them were shopping at Amazon.com (AMZN), which saw a 25% increase in unique U.S. visitors to its site on Black Friday compared to the same day last year.

Actually, Amazon.com and three other sites - Walmart, Target and BestBuy - all surpassed 4 million unique visitors on Black Friday.

However, not all of them faired as well as Amazon.com. Target saw a 9% increase in unique visitors and BestBuy saw a 1% increase. Walmart had a 1% decrease, according to comScore.

Sharon Gaudin covers the Internet and Web 2.0, emerging technologies, and desktop and laptop chips for Computerworld. Follow Sharon on Twitter at @sgaudin or subscribe to Sharon's RSS feed . Her e-mail address is sgaudin@computerworld.com .

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