Holiday online shoppers were off to a better start this year than last.
The first week of the holiday shopping season, which included the entire week of Thanksgiving ending on Sunday, saw a 27 percent increase in e-commerce sales from the same period a year ago, according to e-commerce rating service BizRate.com. Total online sales for the week were nearly $943 million, the online service reported.
E-tailers tallied $395.22 million in online sales during Thanksgiving weekend itself—a 26 percent increase over last years $316.49 million, according to BizRate.
Computer hardware was the strongest performer over the weekend at $73.44 million, or a 41 percent increase over last year. The largest percentage gain was recorded by sales of toys and games, which jumped 69 percent year-to-year, to $27.08 million.
The only decliners, were office supplies—never a big gift category to begin with—down 23 percent to $3.19 million, and apparel, down 12 percent to $36.61 million, according to BizRate.
Women comprised 59 percent of online shoppers, BizRate reported. GI Joe toys accounted for the largest number of gift search queries. The rest of the top 10 were different brands of digital cameras.