WASHINGTON, December 25: Online shopping has become a major force in retailing this year with more than $1 billion in Christmas season sales, industry analysts say.

The figure for the holiday tops the total for Internet shopping in 1996. Online shopping for the holiday season remained just a drop in the bucket of the estimated $450 billion spent by US consumers. But the figure is growing rapidly.

Overall online sales in 1997 are projected by the market research group Jupiter Communications to nearly triple from 1996 levels to $2.6 billion.

"This is the year ... That online shopping has gone from being a novelty to being a matter of survival, particularly for the last-minute shopper," said Wendy Brown, America Online's vice president of electronic commerce.

Brown said online sales of clothing, books and toys have doubled over last year, but refused to give a dollar amount.

Another research group, Forrester Research, found that one out of four consumers with Internet-connected computers did some browsing and buying online this year. That represents 10 million cyberspace shoppers.

While many analysts have been praising the potential of Internet shopping, it had been limited by questions about security and slow modem connections.

International Data Corporation predicts the world wide web population will reach near 100 million by 1998 and that online commerce, will grow to over $20 billion.

``They're telling us things like, 'I'm over the security hurdle', `I like this experience because it's convenient', `it saves me time and in some cases it saves me money'," said Kate Delhagen, Forrester's online commerce analyst.

The year 1997 "has shown tremendous growth for consumer acceptance and adoption of online transactions," says Robert Smith, president of Shop.Org, an association of online merchants. "We expect 1998 to be a watershed year for consumer online commerce."

Internet bookseller Amazon.Com saw sales increase from $15.8 million in the first nine months of 1996 to $81.5 million as of September.

Amazon.Com remained the most popular online shopping site, followed by cdnow and the disney store.

The increasingly popular cybermalls are becoming more like the brick-and-mortar ones. While there are no traffic jams, there are frustrations.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.