The enormous figure represents an all-time high for the season and marks a 12% increase in spending over the previous year, according to comScore.
Online shoppers put their credit cards (and PayPal accounts) to work for the entire season, but more so on Cyber Monday, which was the heaviest online spending day of the year with $1.028 billion in total spending. It was the only day to break the $1 billion threshold, but seven other days surpassed $900 million in spending.
Monday, December 13 -- also known as Green Monday -- was the second biggest online spending day of the year pulling in $954 billion. Monday, December 6 and Friday, December 17 (Free Shipping Day) followed closely behind with $943 billion and $942 billion in online spending respectively.
comScore credits holiday promotions, discounted merchandise and free shipping offers with helping propel the 2010 season to become the biggest yet. In fact, free shipping "was used in more than half of all e-commerce transactions this season, up significantly from last year," according to comScore chairman Gian Fulgoni.
While we can't yet know if online spending in 2011 will outpace that of 2010, the strength of this past holiday season highlights that consumers are spending more online than ever before. Hopefully, it's a trend that will continue.