December 19, 2003 — (WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) — VeriSign (verisign.com) said today that online payment transaction volumes during the holiday season for its approximately 100,000 online retailers are up by 39 percent compared to 2002. The company said that between Thanksgiving and December 16, VeriSign Payment Services have processed more than 23.6 million Internet merchant payment transactions totaling approximately $3.54 billion in online sales volume. The numbers for last year were 16.9 million transactions totaling approximately $2.89 billion, the company said.
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“We’re seeing record numbers of online shopping activity across the board this holiday season,” said Trevor Healy, vice president of Payment Services at VeriSign. “We’re seeing bigger average transactions, more overall transactions, and more overall customers using the Internet to purchase merchandise online this year. The Internet continues to serve growing numbers of consumers and businesses who recognize it as a safe, convenient method for transacting and online shopping is therefore slowly grabbing a larger share of the overall holiday economy.”
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VeriSign said that the average size of a single consumer transaction during this year’s holiday season is $142. This number is up 16 percent from last year when the average was $122.
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VeriSign also said that the total sales volume for all its payment merchants combined, increased by more than 22 percent over last year.
