Retailers continue to see the benefits of operating an ecommerce platform, with newly released data from comScore suggesting online spending experienced double-digit year-over-year growth during the first quarter of 2012.

American shoppers spent upward of $44.3 billion during the first three months of 2012, an increase of 17 percent from the same time frame last year. With the economy still slow to recover, many consumers are budgeting their expenses more carefully. That means they are turning to the web, where they can frequently find better deals on the goods and services they want to purchase.

"The first quarter of this year was especially strong for retail ecommerce as we returned to year-over-year growth rates in the high teens, numbers we haven't seen since 2007," said comScore chairman Gian Fulgoni. "… the channel shift to ecommerce appears to be accelerating. This presents opportunities but also challenges for brick-and-mortar retailers if they can’t hold onto their offline market share in the digital world."

Despite the growth of ecommerce, many retail industry experts expect brick-and-mortar store operations to continue to be important for the overall shopping experience, at least for the next decade.

This entry was posted by Retail Pro on Sunday, May 13th, 2012 at 10:14 am .