According to comScore Inc., which was predicting flat online sales for the holiday period, the online spending actually fell 3 percent up to December 23, as against the same period last year. The by and large drab period had Apple Inc and Amazon.com among the top traffic gainers.

Between November 1 and December 23 – which was the last day to purchase online for delivery by Christmas Eve - online spending at $25.5 billion marked its first ever decline since 2001, when comScore began online sales tracking.

Though the mentioned online sales figure does not include auctions and large corporate purchases, it still indicates that, in the fourth quarter, the $36.8 billion e-commerce spending has declined 4.3%, making it in all likelihood the first full quarter with decreased spending!

It is being predicted that Wal-Mart would be the most successful retailer during the holiday season, with its ongoing largely solid sales performance, a cut above most other retailers during the year.

EBay Inc., even with its 3.9% less traffic than the same period last year, was the most visited retail site with 85.4 million visitors. Other sites that grew were Amazon.com Inc. with 7.4% increase, reaching 76.2 million visitors; Wal-Mart Stores Inc. grew 3.9% to 51.5 million; Apple Inc. grew 19% to 35 million; while Target Corp. fell 1.1% to 46.8 million visitors.