Holiday Online Shopping Traffic Booms

InterActiveCorp, Walmart, Amazon, Target and Best Buy generated some of the heaviest online shopping traffic on Thanksgiving and “Black Friday,” based on figures released by online marketing research firms.

Nielsen Online reported its representative sample of 120 online retailers generated 21.2 million unique visitors on the day after Thanksgiving, compared to 19.2 million visitors the same day last year.

Web sites offering consumer electronics, computer hardware and software experienced triple digit growth in online traffic from Nov. 16 to Nov. 23, according to Nielsen. The next highest traffic categories were comparison-shopping and apparel sites.

Online shopping traffic on Thanksgiving increased 20% compared to last year, according to the Hitwise Top 100 Retail Index. On “Black Friday” online shopping traffic was 16% higher than in 2006, according to Hitwise.