Nielsen//NetRatings announced today that the total number of visits to the Holiday eShopping Index grew 20 percent year over year, from 459.5 million to 551.6 million in the week ending December 17th.

The popularity of online holiday shopping has been predicted to increase this year as patrons prefer shopping at home to the hustle and bustle of department stores. In Pricegrabber's 2006 consumer report conducted in October of this year, 92 percent of respondents said they expected to shop and buy more online this year than last year.

The top four online shopping days this year have exceeded 30 million unique users with three of those four days falling within the week ending December 17th. The first day to reach the 30 million threshold was the Wednesday after Thanksgiving, November 29th.

Differences could be seen between online-only retailers and multi-channel retailers with online-only having 54 percent greater visits than multi-channel retailers. However, visits to multi-channel retailers have increased 21 percent year over year, while visits to online-only retailers have increased 12 percent.

"More and more traditional brick and mortar retailers are investing heavily in their online presence in order to capitalize on the convenience of online shopping," said Heather Dougherty, senior retail analyst, Nielsen//NetRatings. "These retailers have the additional advantage of being able to offer in-store pickup of goods ordered online, extending the shopping season and eliminating shipping costs."