Cyber Monday: Positive Signs for Strong Holiday Shopping Season

PHOENIX, Nov. 29, 2010— -- With shoppers flooding stores over the weekend and flocking to the web for Cyber Monday deals today, retailers are increasingly optimistic that it will be a strong holiday shopping season.

Holiday spending over Thanksgiving weekend totaled $45 billion, according to the National Retail Federation, and many analysts expected strong sales on Cyber Monday, as well.

At Amazon.com's distribution center in Phoenix, more than a quarter of million packages will ship today, and it's just one of 25 shipping centers the company has across the U.S.

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It's a positive sign, particularly because while "Cyber Monday" gets plenty of press attention, it's not usually even the busiest day for online retailers. Holiday sales typically peak sometime in December.

With broadband Internet connections far more common in American homes than they were five years ago, shoppers certainly didn't need to wait for Cyber Monday to do their holiday shopping over the web.

Online shopping surged over the weekend, with sales jumping 9 percent compared to a year ago, according to analytics firm comScore. On Thanksgiving Day alone, comScore calculates that $407 million was spent online, up nearly 30 percent from 2009.

"The trends today should follow what happened over the weekend," Maggie Taylor, a senior credit officer with Moody's told Reuters. "I would expect Cyber Monday to be as strong as sales were this weekend."

And as web orders poured in over the weekend, sales at the mall were equally brisk. The average shopper spent $365 in the last few days, up $20 from last year, according to the National Retail Federation.

All those dollar signs could also be good news for the American worker. Experts say that many of the 600,000 new jobs that were created this holiday season could become permanent.

"We definitely plan to keep some of these seasonal workers on as full-time employees after the holidays," said Berg Wegner, director of fulfillment for Amazon.com.