Online shoppers spent more than $500 million on apparel in July, an increase of 44% over July 2002, reports comScore Networks Inc.’s Media Metrix division.

More than 34 million shoppers visited apparel sites, Media Metrix says. July’s growth was an acceleration of the growth at apparel sites for the first six months when growth totaled 36% over the year-ago period.

"Unlike other Retail categories such as Books and Computer Hardware, in which a small number of sites draw the majority of category traffic, visitation to the Apparel category is distributed among a relatively large number of properties," Media Metrix’s report said. "In fact, 28 properties were visited by more than 500,000 Internet users in July." Otto Gruppe sites, which include Spiegel.com and EddieBauer.com, were the leading apparel properties in July, with 4.3 million unique visitors, Media Metrix says. The ranking excludes mass merchant sites that also sell apparel.

The top apparel sites in July, and number of visitors, were: Otto Gruppe: 4.26 million Limited Brands: 3.684 million OldNavy.com: 3.666 million Alloy: 2.602 million Gap: 2.419 million Foot Locker sites: 2.327 million Nike: 1.998 million LLBean.com: 1.626 million AE.com: 1.604 million Fredericks.com: 1.595 million Nordstrom.com: 1.542 million Chadwicks.com: 1.43 million AbercrombieandFitch.com: 1.399 million Zappos.com: 1.332 million LandsEnd.com: 1.242 million Apparel Category total: 34.176 million