Cyber Monday, the Monday immediately following Black Friday and the ceremonial kick-off of the holiday online shopping season, saw $733 million in online spending, representing a 21 percent increase vs. last year and an 84 percent jump from the average daily online spending totals during the preceding four weeks.

This was a key finding from a report released by comScore, a company that measures the digital world. The report covered holiday season e-commerce retail spending during the first 26 days of the November/December 2007 holiday season, including spending totals for Cyber Monday (Nov. 26). More than $10.7 billion has been spent online during the season to date, marking a 17 percent gain vs. the corresponding days last year.

On Cyber Monday, most of the top online retail sites experienced significant gains in the number of visitors. Amazon sites, for example, saw the most visitors on Cyber Monday this year, up 26 percent vs. the same day last year and up 50 percent compared to the average daily visitors during the four weeks leading up to Cyber Monday. Six out of the top 10 retail sites saw their visitors more than double compared to the daily average during the four weeks. Apple's modest gains are the result of consistently high traffic levels during the weeks preceding Cyber Monday.

CyberMonday.com, a site for online retailers to advertise their holiday season promotions, also experienced notable gains, attracting 56 percent more visitors than on Cyber Monday 2006 and representing a 25-fold increase vs. the average daily visitors during the preceding four weeks.

Some other notable findings for Cyber Monday 2007 include:

• The number of online buyers was up 38 percent compared to Cyber Monday 2006, while the average dollars spent per buyer was down 12 percent. The decline in dollars per buyer could be due to two factors -- deeper and broader price discounts offered by online merchants and the fact that "new Cyber Monday buyers" tended to spend less online than returning buyers.
• 6 percent of the Internet users on Cyber Monday made an online purchase.
• 44 percent of Internet users on Cyber Monday shopped online (that is, they either visited an online retail site or used a comparison shopping engine).
• 60 percent of dollars spent online on Cyber Monday came from work computers, with the balance coming from home and university computers.