Forrester Research, Inc. (Nasdaq: FORR), in conjunction with Greenfield Online, today announced the results of the latest Forrester Online Retail Index. According to the survey, total US spending on online sales increased from $4.9 billion in November to $5.7 billion in December. The number of households shopping online increased to 18.7 million in December, from 16.8 million in November. Consumers spent an average of $304 per person in December, compared with $293 in November.

In addition, owing to changes in the methodology, Forrester revised monthly online sales figures for 2000 to reflect more accurately the total number of online shoppers who were buying throughout the year. Total online retail sales for 2000 reached $42.4 billion, while December 2000 online retail sales came to $5.0 billion. Total online retail sales for 2001 reached $47.6 billion.

“We realized we had overestimated the number of shoppers that had been projected in the latter part of 2000. Once the 2000 sales figures were amended, it supported our previous analysis that online sales were up from last year,” said Christopher M. Kelley, analyst at Forrester. “Despite a difficult economic time, online shopping is here to stay.”

About The Index
The Forrester Online Retail Index measures, on a monthly basis, the growth and seasonality of online shopping based on data collected from online shoppers. The Index is based on 5,000 responses during the first nine business days of the month from an online panel developed by Greenfield Online. The survey results for December were fielded from January 3 through January 9, 2002.

The monthly panel is weighted to Forrester Research’s Consumer Technographics® Benchmark Panel, a survey of 90,000 US members of a consumer mail panel developed by NFO Worldwide, a market research firm. Data was weighted to demographically represent the US population. The Benchmark Panel was fielded from December 2000 to January 2001.