If you're anything like us, for the past month or so every online retailer you've ever done business with has been bombarding your inbox with pronouncements of can't miss steals and deals. The holiday season's annual race to unload disposable (and not-so-disposable) income has exploded nowhere as much as it has online. This year, online shopping jumped 15 percent from last year to $35.3 billion spent between November 1 and December 26 alone, according to ComScore.
Given the human propensity to procrastinate, the second to last week before Christmas was also the most consumptive, with over $6 billion spent in the seven-day period ending December 18. The single biggest sales day wasn't Black Friday, but Cyber Monday, when Americans sent $1.5 billion pinging around secure servers.
As for how much of all that spending actually went toward gifts for others as opposed to indulgences for yourself? We won't ask.
[via CNET]
