<div id="subtitle">New figures show modest start for stores, much stronger start for online retailers</div><div><p>New weekend shopping figures offered more evidence Wednesday confirming stores' modest start to the holiday shopping season. Online sales held up more strongly.</p><p>Retail sales for the three-day holiday weekend rose 1.6 percent compared with a year earlier, ShopperTrak said Wednesday, even though slightly fewer people shopped, with traffic down 1.1 percent.</p><p>ShopperTrak, which measures traffic and sales at more than 50,000 outlets, said that sales for the three-day weekend totaled $20.5 billion. That compares with $20.1 billion a year ago when sales and traffic fell dramatically after a decent performance on Black Friday.</p><p>The 1.1 percent decline in customer traffic for the three-day weekend compares with an 18.7 percent drop a year ago.</p><p>Meanwhile, comScore Inc., an Internet research firm, reported that online sales rose 5 percent on the Monday after Christmas, a marketing blitz the industry calls "Cyber Monday."</p><p>Sales totaled $887 million, matching the heaviest online shopping day on record, Dec. 9 of last year, according to comScore.</p><p>For the holiday season to date, online sales rose 3 percent to $12.26 billion.</p><p>"Retailers' aggressive and early marketing efforts have so far succeeded in persuading consumers to open their wallets online," ComScore Chairman Gian Fulgoni said.</p><p>This year, retailers spread out online deals throughout the holiday and Fulgoni said Thanksgiving Day and Black Friday were busier than they have been in years past.</p><p>About half of the dollars spent online at U.S. Web sites on Cyber Monday originated from work computers.</p><img src="http://admatch-syndication.mochila.com/images/ad.gif?aid=64605976&bid=informcom" /></div><div id="copyright"><div>

Copyright 2009  <a href="http://www.ap.org">AP News</a></div></div>