Nielsen Netratings, Goldman, Sachs & Co. and Harris Interactive have released online purchasing data in their joint Holiday eSpending Report.

The report states that consumers spent in excess of 18 billion dollars on online purchases, excluding travel, from October 29 to December 9 2005. This represents a 16 percent increase over the same period for last year.

Of particular interest is that 19% of 1,000 people surveyed indicated that they are still yet to commence their holiday shopping and 44% say they have started, but not finished. So, there’s still plenty of bucks to be made, good news indeed for ecommerce merchants :).

The top categories so far in online purchasing:

• apparel/clothing
• consumer electronics
• computer hardware and peripherals
• books
• toys and video games

The popularity of online shopping has jumped nearly 6 percent over last year. In terms of customer satisfaction, 70% stated that they are very or somewhat satisfied with their purchasing experiences.

Read more of the Holiday eSpending Report (PDF)