James Delahunty
28 Nov 2011 6:44
Amazon.com Inc. leads the pack again.
This year's Black Friday has been a great success for e-tailers such as Amazon.com Inc., with online sales in the United States jumping 26 percent, according to research from comScore. The jump compares to the year-over-year growth for Black Friday 2010 of 9 percent.
Online sales last Friday reached $816 million, easily the heaviest spending day on the Internet so far in 2011. There had been some fears that online sales would suffer as brick-and-mortar retailers offered big discounts to shoppers this year, and even in some cases, opened late on Thanksgiving to get an early start.
"With brick-and-mortar retail also reporting strong gains on Black Friday, it's clear that the heavy promotional activity had a positive impact on both channels," comScore Chairman Gian Fulgoni said.
The amount of Americans who visited an online retail site on Black Friday this year topped 50 million, around 35 percent more than last year.
"Amazon.com once again led the pack, with 50 percent more visitors than any other retailer, while also showing the highest growth rate versus last year," Fulgoni said.