Dec 30, 2009

This holiday season, Web sales are retailers’ biggest giftBy Frank AhrensWashingtonPost.com

Consumers spent a little more than anticipated during the holiday season, according to a report out on Monday, and a significant e-tail threshold may have been crossed on Christmas Day at Amazon, the online bookseller.

For the first time ever, online sales of e-books on Christmas Day exceeded sales of physical books at Amazon, the company said on Monday.

Overall, retail spending from Nov. 1 to Dec. 24 rose 3.6 percent compared with the corresponding period last year, according to MasterCard’s SpendingPulse survey, which tracks all retail spending, including cash transactions.

The increase was partly attributable to one extra shopping day in 2009. Even removing that day, retail spending still beat last year’s performance, when recession-dampened sales slumped 2.3 percent compared with the 2007 period.

This year’s results also bested expectations, which forecast a 1 percent slump in holiday spending across November and December, compared with last year’s historically bad results.

“While up is good, it wasn’t going to take much” to beat 2008 holiday spending, said Miller Tabak equity strategist Peter Boockvar. “Things are better but still sluggish, and consumers are still fervently looking for sales.”

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