"Cyber Monday" sales rise, more spikes expected

By Karen Jacobs

ATLANTA (Reuters) - Buyers spent $733 million bargain-hunting on "Cyber Monday," up 21 percent from a year earlier, and some analysts expect that one-day tally to be topped as Christmas nears.

The biggest online traffic winners on the Monday after Thanksgiving included retailers Amazon.com Inc, Wal-Mart Stores and Best Buy Co, Internet research firm comScore Inc said on Wednesday.

Cyber Monday marked the first time that a single day of online spending broke the $700 million mark, comScore said.

The Monday after the four-day holiday weekend has been dubbed Cyber Monday because many consumers return to work and seek deals not found in bricks-and-mortar retailers using their employers' high-speed Internet connections.

ComScore said 60 percent of the money spent online on Monday came from work computers.

"It's clear that Cyber Monday is the biggest day of the 2007 holiday shopping season so far," said Ken Cassar, an analyst with Nielsen Online.

Nielsen data indicated 32.5 million people shopped online on Cyber Monday, up 10 percent from a year earlier and higher than the 28.8 million who shopped online on Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving that kicks off the holiday season for offline retailers.

Cassar and others said the Cyber Monday figures would likely be surpassed in the weeks leading up to Christmas.