VeriSign Announces Online Holiday Shopping Statistics

VeriSign, Inc. (www.verisign.com), a provider of intelligent infrastructure services for the Internet and telecommunications networks, today released new e-commerce data showing that the first week of the prime holiday shopping season accounted for $2.2 billion of online purchases.

"More consumers are shopping online and are now comfortable in purchasing content related products in addition to traditional goods this holiday season," said Trevor Healy, vice president, payment services, VeriSign.

The two full weeks preceding the holidays are traditionally the top shopping days during the season. This year, the weeks of December 6 and December 13 represent this peak shopping period. In tracking online spending and transactions during this first week, VeriSign research indicates that significantly more consumers turned to online sales channels this season.

The total volume of sales transactions recorded during the week of December 6, 2004 reached 28.9 million, a 21 percent increase as compared to the week of December 8, 2003, the equivalent holiday shopping week from last year.

The average sale amount was $140 during the time period from Thanksgiving 2004 through Sunday, December 12, 2004. This represents a $10 increase in the average sale amount as compared to the same time period in 2003 (Thursday, November 27, 2003 to Sunday, December 14, 2003).