Cyber Monday: Positive Signs for Strong Holiday Shopping Season
Consumers spent billions on gifts over holiday weekend.
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."
Average Shopper Spent $365 Over the 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.
Federal Government Targets Internet Fraud
The uptick in holiday spending, particularly online, provides more incentive for fraud. Today, the federal government targeted several Web sites illegally selling counterfeit items.
At a news conference this morning, Attorney General Eric Holder said that law enforcement authorities have seized and blocked 82 web sites that were selling fake versions of luxury brands like Louis Vuitton and Timberland, as well as music and software.
One shopping trend that is legit, though, is mobile phone use. Fifty-nine percent of cell phone users say their phones are crucial in the shopping process, according to the Mobile Marketing Association. They use them to check prices, look up inventory in nearby stores and even make purchases.
For some, it's the ultimate synthesis of getting out and about for a little holiday spirit while also getting the very best deals available.
EBay mapped the use of its mobile shopping app over the weekend, and it shows that shopping by phone isn't limited to tech-savvy city dwellers. The top volume for mobile sales was found in cities in South Carolina, Pennsylvania, Texas and Utah.
ABC's Bradley Blackburn and Reuters contributed to this report.