Non-travel online shoppers spent $18.6 billion in the first six weeks (October 29 - December 9) of the 2005 holiday season, up 16 percent for the same period last year, with 19 percent of consumers yet to start their holiday shopping, according to the Holiday eSpending Report from Goldman Sachs, Nielsen/NetRatings and Harris Interactive. Holiday online shoppers have spent the most on apparel/clothing - $3.4 billion, or 17 percent, of total online holiday spending.

The consumer electronics and computer hardware/peripherals categories were second and third, with $2.8 billion and $2.7 billion, respectively. Books and toys/video games were next, with $2.2 billion and $1.4 billion, respectively.

Consumers' 2005 holiday budgets among various sales channels were allocated as follows: bricks-and-mortar stores, or 69 percent of spending, compared with 3.5 percent for catalogs. Online, the sole channel to see year-over-year growth, garnered 27.5 percent of the holiday budget, up 5.9 percentage points from last year.

As of the fifth week of the holiday season, 30 percent of consumers had not started their online shopping, up from 23 percent last year. By the sixth week, 19 percent of consumers still had not started their online holiday shopping, and 37 percent said they had finished; 44 percent said they'd started but not finished.