Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Report: Online Spending Stalls

Online retailers are starting to see the impact of a slow economy, according to a report released Tuesday by comScore. comScore, which measures Internet traffic and ecommerce sales, said that online spending in October of this year only grew 1 percent over last year's rates. The firm said the growth was the lowest monthly growth rate since comScore began tracking e-commerce in 2001. The report found that the softness in online retail spending was driven in a big part by negative spending growth in households earning less than $50,000. The slowdown in online spending in is huge contrast the the year-to-year changes being seen in 2007, when comScore was reporting back-to-back, double digit growth in ecommerce sales. For example, last year, comScore reported a 28% year-to-year increase in sales in August, 19% increases in September and a 19% increase in October. That contrasts with only a 6% increase in ecommerce sales in August, a 5% increase in September.

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