The latest comScore report shows online shoppers have spent almost 20 billion since November 1st. More precisely, during this holiday shopping season, consumers have spent over $19.57 billion with online retailers so far this holiday season. That number is up 15.1 percent from the over $17 billion spent at this same point last year, stated comScore in its latest estimate of ecommerce spending. The digital marketing intelligence company’s figures include consumer spending between November 1 and December 4.

For the most part, spending surged this year because of the three ecommerce billion-dollar sales days − Cyber Monday, which has proven to be the most lucrative day for U.S. ecommerce yet, along with the two days that followed, November 29th and November 30th. The only other billion-dollar day in the history of ecommerce was last year’s Cyber Monday, the Monday after Thanksgiving.
For the week ending December 4th, ecommerce spending went over $5.80 billion, up 15 percent from the same week last year, comScore said. However, the potentially soft part of the holiday shopping season for online retailers is yet to come, according to Gian Fulgoni, comScore’s chairman.

“We are now entering the portion of the season when online retailers typically reduce their promotional activity as they attempt to restore their margins, which can sometimes contribute to temporary softness in spending growth rates,” said Fulgoni. “However, this will likely be immediately followed by an acceleration in the spending rate as we approach the middle of December, which is sure to bring us several more billion dollar online spending days,” he added.

High income consumers account for the growth in online holiday spending, with households that earn between $50,000 and $99,000 per year increasing their online spending the most, comScore said. The mid-income households are spending $175 per buyer, up nearly 20 percent from $146 at the same point last year. Households that earn more than $100,000 per year are spending $186 per buyer, up 16% percent from last year; whereas, households that earn less than $50,000 per year are spending $134 per buyer, down 1 percent from last year.

“We have seen some indications that mid-income Americans might be experiencing austerity fatigue,” said Fulgoni. “After spending the last couple of years increasing their personal savings in an effort to get their finances in order, some appear to have decided they are done with penny pinching and are increasing their spending by taking advantage of the many promotions and price discounts that online retailers have been offering in the first half of the holiday shopping season. The appeal of lower prices that can be found on the Internet is also undoubtedly a driver of the acceleration of the shift from in-store buying to ecommerce that we are witnessing among all income segments this season,” he concluded.

The number of households buying online has grown only modestly (3 percent) this holiday season to 119.7 million households, up from 116.2 million at this time last year. This is a departure from past years when the continuous increase in the number of online buyers drove growth; this year it is the 12 percent average increase in spend per buyer, said comScore.