Father's Day sales hit $91 million
Grads and dads are a winning combination for online retailers this year with orders almost doubling those of last year.
Online sales for Father's Day totaled about $91 million, almost triple the number from last year of $31.8 million, according to Net researcher and marketplace BizRate.com.
Online orders grew to more than 700,000, almost double last year figures, and the average purchase amount was $129, according to Bizrate, which compiles data from online retailers.
The coinciding graduation season boosted numbers, too.
Some of the hottest selling items for Father's Day and graduation were portable electronics, plugged heavily by the online consumer electronics retailers.
For the week ending June 3, there was a 60 percent increase in sales for MP3 players, digital cameras and PDAs and "thousands of units were sold altogether," said Lisa Stapleton, editor in chief of OneChannel.net, a company that measures e-commerce performance.
OneChannel.net collects data from more than 30 online retailers including Outpost.com, Egghead and Buy.com, among others, primarily concentrating in the computer market.
The number of MP3 players sold during the week ending June 4 increased 85 percent over sales the previous week, ending May 28, OneChannel.net data showed.
BizRate ranked books as the most popular gift purchased online, followed by entertainment products and clothing.
Bizrate computes online sales by surveying customers of more than 4,000 online merchants in its marketplace.