Cyber Monday Sets Online Spending Records

The reports are in and it appears people are doing their Christmas shopping early and online to take advantage of the bargains and save money, the Wall Street Journal reports.

“Sales on Cyber Monday, the nickname for the Monday after Thanksgiving, rose 19.4% from last year, according to Coremetrics, which tracks the websites of over 500 online retailers. The number tops last year’s 14% growth, which had been the highest in the seven years that Coremetrics has tracked online sales,” the Wall Street Journal stated.

” Amazon.com (AMZN) saw the most visits on Cyber Monday, according to Brand Keys, a marketing research firm. Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT) was second and Target Corp. (TGT) was third. Best Buy Co. (BBY), Kohl’s Corp. (KSS), Sears Holdings Corp. (SHLD) unit Lands End, J.C. Penney Co. (JCP) and Macy’s Inc. (M) were all in the top 10….

Best Buy’s online site saw its biggest sales volume ever on Cyber Monday, a spokesman said. While declining to provide a sales figure, the spokesman said sales growth increased almost 50%,” according to the Wall Street Journal.

“More people were shopping online and the individual orders were larger than last year. Coremetrics said the average order value on Cyber Monday was $194.89, an increase of 8.3% from last year’s average of $180.03,” CNN Money noted.

Many sites extended their sales to Tuesday as they were not ready for the sheer volume of visitors to their sites and had some problems. Twitter posts abounded of people having problems accessing even main stream sites.

Final numbers are expected soon, but over $1 billion is the general area.

Update: Cyber Monday sales surpassed the billion dollar mark for the first time ever, making it the heaviest online spending day in history. Read more in “Cyber Monday Sets Single-Day Record as Sales Surpass $1B” on ClickZ.