Web monitoring firm comScore has marked a recent 15 percent weekly increase in online holiday sales in what could possibly be the busiest week of the year.

According to the research company shoppers have spent $30.9 billion online from Nov. 1 through Dec. 16, that number compares to just $26.9 billion during the same period of 2010.

The tracking company also found that during four days last week buyers purchased more than $1 billion worth of goods for a total of $6.31 billion, 15% better than last years best week total.

According to comScore chairman Gian Fulgoni that five day period:

“Will almost certainly be the heaviest week of the online holiday shopping season.”

The company notes that this years Cyber Monday is still the largest online shopping day ever recorded with a 22 percent increase to $1.25 billion (pictured above), a number that just barely surpassed $1 billion last year.

With holiday shopping expected to make up 40 percent of annual revenues for 2011 the growing trend towards online purchases is good news for online retailers and bad news for the more expensive to operate brick and mortar locations.

An interesting point of interest was also discovered through the company’s research, according to comScore more than half of all purchases made online for the current holiday shopping period were sent to customers using free shipping offers.

Do you believe online shopping sales figures will continue to see a large increase in the years to come thanks to the mobility of users who now take advantage of tablets, smartphones and other portable devices on a more regular basis?

Holiday Shopping Increases 15% Online, Shoppers Spend Billions is a post from: The Inquisitr

In a surprising move Amazon on Wednesday night agreed to start charging sales tax in California in 2012, a move that will be a huge boost for state revenues. California customers serve as a large customer base for Amazon’s $35+ billion retail business.

The online retailer said they had reached a deal with California officials that will stop their fight over a new law that requires sales tax to be collected when online retailers sell products to residents in the state. Since Amazon agreed to drop their battle against lawmakers they have received a one-year reprieve from sales tax.

A source close to the San Jose Mercury News said “it’s a good deal” since it means Amazon won’t be able to find workarounds from the law.

At one point Amazon had threatened to create a referendum which would give voters the chance to repeal the law, then offering to accept terms if a two-year block on sales taxes was offered a deal state Democrats refused to accept, thus leading to a much better one-year reprieve from the state.

Will you still continue to buy products from Amazon if the site begins charging sales taxes? Throw in the cost of shipping and the site’s deals may not look so attractive to buyers looking for a deal and not necessarily the convenience of buying online.

Amazon Charging California Sales Tax In 2012 is a post from: The Inquisitr

Now that I’ve calmed down after a very frustrating evening yesterday I am pretty sure I can have this little rant without getting too riled up – but no promises. You see, last night I decided I wanted to buy some tunes as I had a sudden urge to play some music of one of my all-time favourite band Flash and The Pan. That’s okay I’ll understand if you don’t know who the hell that is; although AC/DC fans might know since it was Angus and Malcolm Young’s older brother, George, who started the band. Anyway, I wanted to listen to some of their stuff but at the same time I decided that I would see about buying MP3 versions of their albums.

So off I head to Google to search up some music sites that might have any of their music for sale. I had to go the Google route because neither Amazon or iTunes accepts PayPal as a payment method (and to nip it in the bud – iTunes will not let you open a store account with PayPal BTDT so leave it alone). Now I will say the the results looked pretty promising and I had high hopes that I might even be able to pick up all their albums. Then I started going through the results getting madder and madder as I went.

First off whose bright idea was it that you hide your payment methods until after you have forced some poor unsuspecting sap sign up to your raggedy ass music e-commerce sight? You deserve to be taken out back of the outhouse and slapped right silly – seriously – I’m not joking. When you do this one has to wonder what other bullshit you are hiding on unsuspecting customers plus on top of that; from this point on I couldn’t care less if you had every single piece of music I wanted – you’re not getting my money.

Like really, is it so hard to be up front and honest and let people know before you put them through a pointless signup procedure what payment methods you allow. Along with that what is this subscription stupidity and making us use some piece of branded software so we can even download our purchases – if we can make any. Here’s the thing – I want to drop buy when the urge hits – this month or maybe next month or even in five months – buy a couple of albums; or songs, and be on my way. I don’t want to have to pay you each and every month or use your software to download what I do buy. Guess what – you’re not getting my money either.

Like what is this crap at Napster where they say you can keep the music for as long as you are a member – WTF you mean if I stop paying for a membership my music is toast? I can’t believe that people would willingly fall for this crap at $10.00 per month or $120.00 per year and then for whatever reason down the road they quit paying; only to find out they no longer have what they paid for – bullshit!

Then you have eMusic which is billed as the cooler alternative to iTunes which it might be but I’m not going to be forking over $11.99 per month for a membership; especially since if I don’t make use of my download allowance for the month it is gone – no roll-over for ya sucker. Guess what eMusic – none of my money for you either.

What is so hard about letting a person drop by a site, find the music they want, enter in their payment info, pay for what they want and then download it?

There is no need for memberships unless it is purely for the customer’s ease of use – not a way to build up a database. You don’t need to know who the hell I am or where I live. You’re not sending me anything in the mail so you don’t need my address. I don’t need any special software in order to download my purchases unless of course you are incorporating some sort of DRM or watermarking. If that is the case – bye bye.

By the way, if either Young or Vardas would like payment for some Flash and The Pan albums I found email me. As for the rest of those music sites guess what – you lost out on making some money last night and for the rest of my music purchases. In the spirit of Twitter – you #suckit.

Why do you guys make it so hard to take my money? is a post from: The Inquisitr

Let me give you a little hint Microsoft:

Not everyone in the world has a frikken credit card!

This idea that that the biggest software company in the world seems to think that credit cards are the only way to buy goods is stupid and wrong. Like really, how much would it hurt Microsoft to include things like e-checks or debit cards or gawd forbid PayPal as options for buying their goods. Instead as you can see they only take the major credit cards

All I can say is FAIL!

Microsoft Store = Payment FAIL is a post from: The Inquisitr