Shoppers spent more than $900 million on retail web sites from Thanksgiving Day to the following Sunday — 26 percent more than in 2004 — according to comScore Networks (Reston, Va.), a market research and consulting firm.
And millions evidently kept right on shopping at work Monday, validating the latest buzz phrase, “Cyber Monday.”
Cyber Monday “is actually taking place,” Tom Burke, vp of BarnesandNoble.com, told The New York Times.
Holiday traffic peaked on Monday, reaching 27.7 million visits, compared with 23.9 million on Friday and 21 million on Saturday and Sunday, according to Nielsen Net Ratings.
This followed a lackluster “Black Friday” and the first weekend of the holiday season in brick and mortar stores. ShopperTrak, which measures purchases at stores in malls but not online, said sales over the weekend rose a slim 0.4 percent from last year.
The Times reported that the most popular online sites were eBay, with 11.7 million visitors Monday; Amazon, with 5.6 million; and Wal-Mart, with 3 million. And retailers said they saw a significant spike in the number of visits that translated into sales. That shift, they said, indicated that consumers had researched products and prices in the stores before making their purchases online.