eBay has issued their 3rd-annual “Top Shopped” report, where they analyze all of their sales data to come up with what pop culture forces captivated the nation throughout the year. The data was pulled from various eBay categories and solidified into a top 10 list featuring the most popular things of the year (at least in terms of $$$).

Strangely enough, the Top Shopped list does seem to reflect what was popular in 2011. People really do “vote” with their dollars:

1. NFL
2. Harry Potter
3. Twilight
4. Call of Duty
5. Green Bay Packers
6. iPad
7. Sade
8. Justin bieber
9. Glee
10. Charlie Sheen

eBay also dives deeper into the pop culture data with some more facts about the year-end sales figures. eBay shoppers bought 83,879 Lady Gaga-related items, as opposed to only 65,822 Katy Perry items. The Green Bay Packers had more related items sold that any other sport figure (234,089), but QB Aaron Rodgers couldn’t compete with Derek Jeter, who sold an athlete-most 131,250 related items.

“eBay sales are a direct indicator of what Americans are most fascinated by and uniquely reflects the cultural zeitgeist,” said Karen Bard Sayah, eBay Spokesperson. “From the latest video games and tech devices, to royal wedding memorabilia and ‘Winning’ t-shirts, shoppers know that whatever it is they’re coveting, they can find it on eBay.”

Just to put it in perspective for you, last year’s online Black Friday sales only increased 9 percent from the previous year.

comScore data showed that fifty million Americans shopped online on Black Friday, an increase of 35 percent from 2010.

comScore Chairman Gian Fulgoni stated:

“With brick-and-mortar retail also reporting strong gains on Black Friday, it’s clear that the heavy promotional activity had a positive impact on both channels.”

The top five retail websites on Black Friday were Amazon, Walmart, Best Buy, Target and Apple.

“Amazon.com once again led the pack, with 50 percent more visitors than any other retailer, while also showing the highest growth rate versus last year,” said Fulgoni.

With Cyber Monday looming, Fulgoni predicted another record setting day, which is saying something. Sales from Cyber Monday last year topped $1 billion, which made it the largest online spending day ever, according to comScore.

What’s your prediction for Cyber Monday? Leave us a comment below with your guesstimate.

Why not a tablet? Recent studies suggest that everyone is tablet crazy these days, and 90% of Americans either want a tablet or already own one.

Some big name tablets will be doing battle for your hard-earned cash this year – the Barnes & Noble Nook, the Amazon Kindle Fire, and Apple’s iPad 2 to name a few.

Check out this awesome infographic that should provide you with the information necessary to choose the right tablet for you or your loved ones this season.

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<a href="http://www.webpronews.com/choosing-a-tablet-for-the-holidays-2011-11"><img src="http://www.webpronews.com/infographic/choosingatabletfortheholidays.png" alt="Choosing A Tablet For The Holidays" title="Choosing A Tablet For The Holidays" width="600" border="0" /></a><br />Via: <a href="http://www.webpronews.com">WebProNews.com</a>

It is a social commerce application that utilizes Facebook’s tools to create a social commerce platform. According to Henry Kim, the President and Co-founder of Sneakpeeq, the app actually creates a shopping experience on Facebook that is very similar to shopping offline.

Could you see yourself shopping on Facebook instead of going to the mall? Let us know.

As Kim explained to us, in the real world, friends go to the mall together. When an item catches one person’s eye, he or she checks out the price and has their friend to come over to offer an opinion. Sneakpeeq tries to create this same experience on Facebook through a gaming platform.

Since Facebook users are accustomed to games, Kim felt that a gaming approach would be better than trying to introduce an entirely new shopping experience. They studied game mechanics of other popular games and came up with an interesting idea that encourages consumers to include lots of friends.

When a Sneakpeeq user looks at an item and wants to know the price, he or she gets to “peeq” at the price. However, as he or she shares the item with friends, the price of it goes down, thus encouraging more sharing.

Since shopping is a social experience and Facebook is one of the main places where friends socialize online, Kim told us that Sneakpeeq and Facebook fit together perfectly.

“If you’re alone in the mall, that’s not fun,” he said. “What Facebook does is it provides that audience and makes it fun.”

“It enables users to help their friends discover new products,” Kim added.

Sneakpeeq has over 350 brands including national brands such as Kate Spade and Roxy for its users to choose from. Kim told us that the app will roll out of beta in November and that users could expect to see more brands added to its selection and also more social integration.

Do you think the law will hold up, or will it be overturned? Please share your thoughts.

As with any situation, there are two sides to this story. Online retailers, like Amazon, believe they are protected under a Supreme Court ruling in 1992 that said retailers shouldn’t have to pay sales taxes in states in which they don’t have a physical presence. Since Amazon doesn’t have a physical store in California, it therefore believes that the law is out of order.

California, on the other hand, argues that since these retailers have affiliates in the state that sell products for the online retailers, they should be required to pay a sales tax. Although California obviously has a financial motivation in its action, it is also aware that many brick and mortar businesses feel that online retailers have an unfair advantage over them. Brick and mortars are also feeling victimized by the growing trend in which consumers visit brick and mortar stores to test products but then turn around to make their purchases online.

In its effort to get the legislation overturned, Amazon is pushing the idea that because no one wants to pay sales taxes, they should oppose any initiative in favor of taxing online retailers. What’s interesting though is that consumers don’t actually avoid sales taxes by purchasing items online. They are, technically, supposed to keep their receipts and pay what’s called a “use tax.” Most people, however, have not heard about this tax, or simply choose not to pay it because it cannot be enforced.

Amazon is also advocating the idea that this law is placing a tax on the Web, a suggestion that Attorney Mark Rasch, the Director of Cybersecurity and Privacy Consulting at CSC, believes is completely false.

“The truth is it’s not a tax on the Internet. The question is, ultimately, ‘Even though you owe the tax, who’s going to collect and pay it? Is it going to be Amazon, or is it going to be you?’” he said.

According to him, the whole issue comes down to the Dormant Commerce Clause. As he explained, Congress has not acted in the area of taxing ecommerce, which has resulted in confusion for the states that have tried to legislate.

“When Internet ecommerce first started in 1990, 1991, Congress deliberately made a decision they weren’t going to step in, but now we’ve had 20 years of experience,” said Rasch.

He believes that online retailers are currently just buying themselves time and that Congress will step in soon and take action.

“It’s time for Congress to get in and say, ‘Can we tax this, or can’t we tax this?’” he said.

Rasch went on to say that things would probably “get worse before they get better” but that federal regulation would help to resolve the ongoing debate.

Do you agree with Rasch that federal legislation is the answer to the taxation dilemma with ecommerce? Why or why not?

Is social a critical factor to your commerce experience? Let us know your thoughts.

Keepio is an “inventory platform” in which users can list as many items as they want. These items can be made public, but they can also be kept private. Unlike Craigslist, there is no time limit for how long items can be listed. Also, unlike eBay, items can be shared through Facebook and Twitter.

“It’s very different than eBay because it really targets peer-to-peer commerce,” said Dave Durand, CEO of Keepio.

Instead of collecting a transaction fee, Keepio is promoting the idea of “collaborative consumption.” It will make money by learning what people have listed and then targeting them with relevant items. For example, if a user has 4 GE products, advertisers could offer him or her a discount on another GE product.

Durand said he wants the ad process to very “non-obtrusive.” He further explained that the ads would be complimentary offers for users.

Keepio also has plans to take its product mobile by the end of the year.

Could a new startup, like Keepio, take on industry standards like eBay, Craigslist, and Amazon?

The site is well designed, with the snack section divided into a set of categories. They even provide an “International” section, which showcases vending machine snacks I don’t even recognize. You can purchase a one time order, or set up a monthly recurring shipment which will shave off $1.00 per order.

There are a few road blocks to keep Snack&Munch from succeeding. First, the vending machine visit is generally a spontaneous act. You’re sitting in front of your computer screen working, and suddenly you crave a Twix. To order 24 snacks requires a lot of forethought for an act which happens at a moment’s notice.

I’m not sure the prices for vending machines around the country, but $1 seems kind of steep for some of the items on their list. The classic peanut butter cracker six pack is $0.55 in my office’s vending machine. However, it’s the standard $1 on Snack&Munch. They should think about providing a greater variety when it comes to pricing, and making the price tags more competitive with the physical machines.

Snack&Munch, whether it succeeds or fails, demonstrates how the limits of ecommerce are continuing to be pushed in every direction. If something as simple as vending machine purchases can be brought to the online world, what’s next?

Retail sites also had a significant reach in individual markets, representing at least 75 percent of the total online audience in 7 out of 18 European markets. In 2010, one out of every ten Internet sessions in Europe included a visit to a retail website.

Ireland and Russia had the highest growth in retail penetration in Europe, with both markets seeing gains of 15.8 percent, according to comScore. With 40.6 million visitors coming to retail sites in January, Germany remains the largest European market for this category, followed by France and the U.K. with 36.6 million visitors and 34.6 million visitors, respectively.

In January, visitors from the U.K. Led in engagement in the retail category, with an average 0f 84.1 minutes spent on retail sites. France trailed closely with an average of 83.2 minutes, with Turkish visitors coming in next at 73 minutes. Across the board, Europeans spent a collective average of 52.4 minutes, or a little under an hour per visitor, on retail sites in January.

Within the Retail category, the subcategory with the highest market penetration was Comparison Shopping, which reached 31.6 percent of the European market in January 2011, buoyed by Bing Ciao and Shopzilla Sites. Apparel ranked second with a 28.4-percent reach, followed by Consumer Electronics with a 27.1-percent reach.

Ranking the subcategories by engagement, Apparel sites ranked first, with European shoppers spending an average of 23.3 minutes on these sites in January. Apparel sites also had the highest percentage of page views within the Retail category, accounting for 21.6 percent of Retail pages viewed that month.

“As we look toward the future of commerce, eBay is positioning small sellers and larger merchants alike for growth, and connecting them with shoppers excited about their great deals and terrific service,” said Christopher Payne, senior vice president and head of eBay North America.

eBay is also discounting its Final Value Fee rates for Store and Fixed Price sellers, and will apply the Final Value Fee to the total amount of sale, including shipping, to prompt sellers to offer buyers free and low cost shipping.

The company is also introducing a new eBay shopping cart that will allow buyers to add items, both auction and fixed price from multiple sellers and pay in a single checkout.

“I’ve received many questions over the years of when an eBay shopping cart would be introduced. Given that it’s going to be opt-in at first, it’s pretty clear that this is a test and we will be adding functionality through the coming year,” writes Richard Brewer-Hay on the eBay Ink blog.

“On the seller side, it is expected that unpaid items will be virtually eliminated in Fixed Price as items that are in shopping carts will still be available to other buyers until they are paid for.”

U.S. and European online retail will grow at a 10 percent compound annual growth rate (CAGR) from 2010 to 2015, reaching $279 billion and €134 billion, respectively, in 2015. The forecasts include business-to-consumer sales excluding travel and financial services.

“The online retail market in both the US and Western Europe remains strong, despite the challenging economy,” said Forrester Vice President and Research Director Patti Freeman Evans.

“In fact, with consumer purchasing behavior returning to normal, US web sales in 2010 actually accelerated over 2009 compared with the prior year, growing 12.6 percent. In Europe, very strong growth in 2010 was fueled by new online buyers and higher spend per capita on the demand side, as well as the launch of transactional websites by established offline players.”

Retailers are supporting consumers’ increasing use of the Web in the US, helping to drive growth with new business models, such as flash sales and group buying, as well as improved merchandising to provide a broad selection of products available online.

In Western Europe, the online retail market grew 18 percent from 2009 to 2010 and is projected to grow 13 percent from 2010 to 2011, but growth rates will then slow as the market matures and buyer penetration begins to level off. By 2015, 68 percent of online adults will have made a purchase online; however, northern European countries will see 80 percent or more of their online population buying on the web, versus less than 50 percent in southern countries.