ChannelAdvisor: 'Cyber Sunday' Sales Up 18%

Online retail sales on Sunday were up 18 percent from a year earlier but amounted to the slowest growth pace so far in the intense holiday shopping period that started Thursday. Amazon.com Inc.'s

sales Sunday grew 23.8 percent Sunday, the fastest pace of six "channels" tracked by ChannelAdvisor Corp.

. http://www.channeladvisor.com/blog/?pn=scot/18-2-yy-growth-on-cyber-sunday-holiday-2014-update The Morrisville, N.C., software company is calling the period from Thanksgiving to Dec. 1 the "Cyber Five Days," in a variation on the term Cyber Monday, coined in 2006 by the National Retail Federation. Amazon's growth pace slowed from 45.9 percent Saturday, according to ChannelAdvisor. Trailing Amazon's sales growth, eBay Inc

came in second on ChannelAdvisor's list of companies' online sales growth Sunday, with an estimated increase of 16.3 percent, down from 14.9 percent Saturday. Google Inc.'s

shopping channel grew 15.8 percent, compared with 19.7 percent Sunday. Accross the outlets tracked by ChannelAdvisor, about 71 percent of orders were made on computers while 18 percent were via tablets and 11 percent on smart phones. "In the battle to get shoppers to buy earlier, this year we have seen most of the top retailers roll out “Cyber” themed promos on Cyber Saturday, some calling it Cyber Week," Channel Advisor Scot Wingo said. Cyber Monday is historically the largest day for online shopping, according to Wingo. Other results from ChannelAdvisor's Sunday survey showed comparative search engine sales down 2.6 percent from a year earlier and sales via "search" gaining 21 percent. On average, sales from Thursday through Sunday grew 21.8 percent from the same period in 2013, according to ChannelAdvisor's figures.