Online spending saw 4% growth rate this holiday season compared with last year’s figures.

ComScore today reported on retail e-commerce spending for the first 34 days of the November – December 2009 holiday season. So far, $15.3 billion has been spent on e-commerce, which is a 4% increase on the same time period as last year. The week just gone saw three individual days record over $800 million in spending. ‘Cyber Monday’ saw a total spend of $887 million, which matches the heaviest online spending day on record.

Cyber Monday, which fell on the 7th of December this year, was followed by a number of other hefty spending days online, all of which have attributed to the phenomenal growth seen in e-commerce expenditure this year. Consumer electronics and computer hardware have been noted as the key drivers of this surge, each experiencing growth rates well into the double digits. Growth to date has already exceeded ComScore’s growth forecast of 3%. With another two weeks to go before the festive shopping period ends, this growth rate is set to rise even more.

An analysis of the top 25 online retailers shows an average sales growth rate of 13 percent for the month of November, while smaller retailers have showed a decline of up to 10 percent. This reiterates the point that in an unstable economic environment, it is the larger retailers who maintain competitive advantage in the marketplace, with the ability to drive down costs in a bid to meet the demands of the consumer.

Free shipping, which has always played an important part in incentivising customers to buy online, has evidently played an active role in this growth in online spending. Approximately 50 percent of all sales made online included free shipping. That’s an increase of 11% year on year.