Big Cyber Monday expected to follow strong Black Friday

Computerworld - If Black Friday was any indication of a move to online shopping, e-tailers on Cyber Monday may be headed to a record breaking sales day.

Today is Cyber Monday, the first work day after Thanksgiving that often finds office workers spending much of the day shopping online instead of catching up on email and paying attention in meetings.

Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving long known for its shopping frenzy at brick-and-morter stores, was also a big day for online retailers this year.

"Despite some analysts' predictions that the flurry of brick-and-mortar retailers opening their doors early for Black Friday would pull dollars from online retail, we still saw a banner day for e-commerce with more than $800 million in spending," said comScore chairman Gian Fulgoni, in a statement. "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."

ComScore, an online traffic tracker, noted that Black Friday brought in $816 million in U.S. online sales, making it the heaviest online spending day to date this year. Friday's online sales revenues represented a 26% spending increase compared to the same day last year.

During the overall 2011 holiday season to date, U.S. shoppers have spent $12.7 billion online, up 15% compared in 2010, comScore also reported.

"We now turn our attention to Cyber Monday, a day that Shop.org says will see eight-in-ten retailers running special online promotions," said Fulgoni. "Last year, Cyber Monday was the heaviest day of online spending ever, with sales exceeding $1 billion, and we fully expect to see another record set this year."

Which online retailers are doing well - really well - so far this year?

According to comScore, Amazon.com was the top online retailer on Black Friday. Wal-Mart, BestBuy, Target and Apple rounded out the top five respectively.

"Each of the top online retailers generated significantly greater Black Friday activity compared to last year," said Fulgoni.

"Amazon.com once again led the pack, with 50% more visitors than any other retailer, while also showing the highest growth rate versus last year. However, it is telling that the top multi-channel retailers also showed strong growth in visitors, demonstrating the importance of the online channel to the retail industry as a whole," he added.

Sharon Gaudin covers the Internet and Web 2.0, emerging technologies, and desktop and laptop chips for Computerworld. Follow Sharon on Twitter at @sgaudin, or subscribe to Sharon's RSS feed . Her e-mail address is sgaudin@computerworld.com.

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