Vendors and researchers have detected various new trends at play in online retail shopping this holiday season, such as shoppers' increased use of search engines and comparison shopping services to make better informed buying decisions. Not all trends are encouraging, however, such as a disconcertingly high percentage of shoppers willing to buy from spammers.
What no one seems to dispute is that online retail shopping has grown significantly this holiday season over last year's period, a fact verified by various market researchers. For example, comScore Networks expects non-travel retail spending to grow by between 23 percent and 26 percent to between $15.1 billion and $15.5 billion in November and December of this year, compared with last year.