Free shipping spurs e-commerce momentum

E-commerce spending has held its Cyber Monday momentum and remains strong courtesy of free shipping deals, according to ComScore.

The research firm noted the following:

• E-commerce sales are up 15 percent for the week ending Dec. 2;
• The last week featured three $1 billion plus days;
• 64 percent of transactions included free shipping.

Coming up: Great Debate: Is e-commerce killing brick and mortar?

ComScore provided the following charts:

A few observations to ponder:

• ComScore’s data—along with other information from IBM’s CoreMetrics and ShopperTrak—will likely contribute to the clicks-killing-bricks argument for retail. We have a Great Debate on the topic. If anything, I see e-commerce, social, physical stores, and mobile all blending together. The retail experience won’t be zero sum.
• The free-shipping deals mean retailers need to get their logistics down so they can offset the margin hit. The advantage here goes to early e-commerce players such as Amazon.
• Free shipping appears to be the price of admission to even play in the e-tail space.

This story originally appeared on ZDNet's Between the Lines under the headline "E-commerce spending rolls on; Free shipping critical."