Total U.S Holiday Online Sales hit $33 billion [CHART]

Have you spent a lot in the recent holiday season? There isn’t a need to feel guilty if your answer is a yes. You are with company. Most people spent a lot during the Nov-Dec period this year.

With the economy improving, Americans spent a whopping $32.6 billion during the recent holiday season in 2010, marking a 12 percent increase from 2009.

According to comScore, Cyber Monday (Monday, 29 November 2010) racked a $1.028 billion in sales and is the heaviest online spending recorded by comScore in a day, ever since it began tracking e-commerce activity in 2001.

The chart below showed that the sale of each holiday week in 2010 is consistently higher, except for the last two weeks.

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2010 was a year of social commerce and I’m guessing it is one of the key factors that caused the difference between holiday sales in 2009 and 2010. E-commerce isn’t just restricted to a website store, it could also happen in social networks where online shopping becomes a more social experience. As social networking sites continue to gain steam in 2011, we would also expect social commerce to rise too. In fact, 2011 may be a year of f-commerce as Facebook is dedicated to help merchants turn their business pages into retail stores. Many other third party companies like Alvenda and Payvment have also contributed to the rise of Facebook commerce too.

Last but not least, social group buying sites like Groupon and LivingSocial have also fueled holiday sales, as merchants are more aware of their wide reach.