Ecommerce sales growth this holiday season will be similar to or even surpass last year, according to first-half 2011 online sales estimates and the consensus view of a panel of digital marketing experts interviewed by eMarketer. That would mean growth of at least 12% this year, according to comScore’s historical data. The firm reported that online spending grew 12% on volume of $32.8 billion for the 2010 holiday season, which it defines as the months of November and December.

“First-half ecommerce sales estimates are strong and industry experts have reasons to be optimistic about the 2011 online holiday shopping season, but the volatile global economy could cause consumers to cut back on spending,” said eMarketer principal analyst Jeffrey Grau. “Affluent consumers, who account for a high share of online sales, spend freely when their stock portfolios are healthy. But market downturns have historically undermined their sense of financial security, causing them to pull back on discretionary spending.”

A complete report, Online Holiday Shopping Preview: What Retailers Need to Know, is available for eMarketer Total Access subscribers. Learn more about Total Access.

The UK has long dominated Western Europe’s ecommerce landscape, accounting for well over half of annual sales in the EU-5. This year, the UK is expected to see $102 billion in B2C ecommerce sales.

But France, Germany, Italy and Spain are increasingly vital markets in their own right. eMarketer estimates that in 2013, combined online sales in these countries will reach $121.5 billion and overtake the UK total for the first time.

“Europe’s ecommerce market is a resounding success by any standard,” said Karin von Abrams, eMarketer senior analyst and author of the new report, “Western Europe B2C Ecommerce.” “The number of online buyers in Europe’s four main continental markets is rising steadily as consumer confidence increases and online sellers provide an ever-wider range of goods and services.”

The complete report is available to eMarketer Total Access clients. Learn more here.

To listen and watch playback of the webinar, The Future of US Retail Ecommerce, click here. You can view the PowerPoint deck below.

Key takeaways include:

• Why ecommerce sales are outperforming store sales
• Major trends that will fuel future ecommerce growth—from mobile commerce, to group buying to augmented reality tools
• How web shopping behavior and attitudes have evolved and the implications for online marketers

About Jeffrey Grau

Jeffrey Grau covers retail ecommerce in North America for eMarketer. In addition to building ecommerce forecasting models for these markets, he writes on topics such as multichannel retailing, online holiday shopping, social commerce and mobile commerce. Jeffrey is quoted frequently in the press and is in demand as a speaker at digital and industry conferences.

Sponsored by Coremetrics.

Consumer spending on deal-a-day offers is poised to reach $1.25 billion in the US this year, according to a March 2011 forecast by BIA/Kelsey. The firm expects revenues for daily deal sites like Groupon and Living Social will grow steadily, reaching $3.93 billion by the end of 2015.

Click here to read the eMarketer article “A Bright Future For Daily Deal Sites.”

eMarketer is expanding our ecommerce coverage. Here’s a brief review of our latest reports:

Teen Girls: Always on a Social Shopping Mission
Teen girls are intrepid social shoppers who eagerly embrace digital and mobile tools. They engage with friends on social networks on a regular basis, sharing gossip and trivia, soliciting advice and chronicling the details of their lives.

Canada Retail Ecommerce Forecast: Measured Growth Ahead
In 2010, consumers in Canada spent $16 billion online for products and services (including travel). By 2015, Canadian online spending will nearly double. For ecommerce to hit full stride, more Canadian retailers must sell online and help consumers overcome concerns about the safety of online shopping.

Mobile Web: Best Practices for Retailers
Forward-thinking retailers are devising mobile strategies to address each stage in the consumer purchase funnel–awareness, engagement, consideration, conversion and loyalty. Many retailers have turned to fully enabled mobile sites in order to best exploit the channel.

After the Crunch: How Credit Card Issuers Market to Consumers Online
As the economy recovers, credit card issuers are seeking new ways to market products and engage consumers. Traditional offline media and web venues remain marketers’ channels of choice, but social media and ecommerce are also becoming an increasingly vital and effective part of the online marketing mix.

Shopper Marketing Insight: Embracing Digital Touchpoints
Traditionally, retailers and consumer products brands have relied mostly on offline media and promotion to deploy shopper marketing programs that help drive sales, secure customer loyalty and encourage trial of new products. However, as digital media and technology have grown more pervasive in consumers’ lives, they play an increasingly significant role in decision-making at each phase of the shopping process.

Social Commerce: Personalized and Collaborative Shopping Experiences
A new frontier in social commerce is being explored as retailers leverage customers’ Facebook profile data to deliver personalized shopping experiences on their sites. Fueling this trend is web retailers’ quick adoption of social sign-on, which allows consumers to log in to their Facebook account instead of registering on an ecommerce site.

eMarketer clients have access to these reports and hundreds more, easily searchable in our unique digital intelligence portal. To learn more about becoming an eMarketer client, click here.