Despite the parade of bad news stories and bleak earnings reports, this could turn out to be a good holiday season for online sales.
According to a survey by Nielsen//NetRatings, more than 106 million people will spend $9.9 billion shopping online in December.
That compares with the 85 million people who spent $6.9 billion last year, according to the survey group, which is a partnership among NetRatings, Nielsen Media Research and ACNielsen.
The top gift category will be apparel, which will generate almost $2.5 billion in sales. That will be followed by books/music/videos, at almost $1.7 billion, auctions at $1.36 billion and toys at $1.05 billion.
Toys will be the top-growth sector, with a 250 percent jump in traffic between August and December over the same period last year.
The group gave a lot of the credit for that growth to recent partnerships between large companies, such as Amazon and Toys “R” Us.
Consumer electronics is expected to see a 113 percent growth in traffic.