ComScore: Black Friday online sales hit $1.2 billion, with Amazon the top retailer

Online sales in the US on Black Friday reached nearly $1.2 billion from desktop and laptop computers alone, according to Web analytics company firm ComScore.

We know that a number of e-commerce firms enjoyed a successful holiday shopping period — eBay and PayPal both saw order numbers grow on last year — and ComScore has shed further light on Black Friday, which it says became the year’s first billion dollar online shopping day, and the rest of the holiday.

ComScore — which frustratingly (again) doesn’t include data for mobile-based sales — says $1.198 billion was spent on Black Friday, up 15 percent on last year; while Thanksgiving day sales hit $766 million, a 21 percent increase on the holiday in 2012.

Alternative take: Thanksgiving and Black Friday saw record $1.06B and $1.93B in online sales; 15.6% via tablets, 8.6% via smartphones

November itself brought in online sales of $20.574 billion, that’s up 3 percent (comparing the exact dates) or 24 percent if you look at the four week period preceding Thanksgiving, which fell much later this year.

ComScore says a record 66.1 million Americans shopped online this holiday period (though again that accounts for desktop/laptop shoppers only) and it ranks Amazon as the top retailer:

Cyber Monday is still to come, and that seems likely to surpass Black Friday. ComScore estimates Cyber Monday 2012 saw $1.46 million in online sales, but this year it is expecting to see $2 million across desktop and mobile: which would make it the biggest online spending day in US history.

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