Web Sales Soar Over Holiday

The holiday weekend was a big winner for online retailers, who broke previous records by double digits.

Online sales rose faster than expected in the US on Black Friday, according to surveys. Internet sales totaled $816M, a 26% gain on last year, said Comscore. IBM Coremetrics put the rise at 24%. Around 50 million Americans visited online retail sites on Friday, according to Comscore. It said Amazon was the most popular destination, with 50% more visitors than any other retailer. Walmart, Best Buy, Target and Apple were next in line, said the analytics company. "Despite some analysts' predictions that the flurry of brick-and-mortar retailers opening their doors early for Black Friday would pull dollars from online retail, we still saw a banner day for e-commerce," said Comscore's chairman, Gian Fulgoni.

Bloomberg reports that physical stores saw an increase of 6.6%, the largest rise in several years. The holiday retail period ends today with Cyber Monday sales on many sites.