Online Sales on Black Friday Up 42%

With expectations that U.S. consumers to dash out to the stores on the day after Thanksgiving, and to flock to their online versions on Monday, it was a great surprise to find out that Black Friday was very busy online as well. Cyber traffic drove retail sales to $434 million, a 42 percent increase over last year, reports comScore Networks.

EBay, Amazon, and Walmart.com picked up the most traffic, according to Nielsen Net/Ratings.

EBay garnered the most online traffic on Friday, with 7.5 million unique visitors, followed by Amazon.com, with 3.4 million visitors, and Walmart.com, with 3.2 million, Nielsen/NetRatings was quoted by Internet Retailer.

The heavy traffic caused Walmart.com to crash Friday morning, with service only returning to normal operation early in the afternoon.

During the first 24 days of November, total online retail spending reached $8.31 billion, up 23 percent from $6.75 billion in the comparable year-ago period, comScore reported, with online retail spending rising 23 percent to $77.5 billion in January through October, up from $62.6 billion in the year-ago period.

Traffic to comparison shopping sites increased 21 percent on Friday, comScore says.