U.S. online sales on Cyber Monday climbed 19%

(Bloomberg) -- Online sales in the U.S. rose 19 percent yesterday, coming in as the biggest Internet shopping day of the year so far as Web retailers gain ground on traditional stores, according to research firm Coremetrics.

The average order climbed 8.3 percent to $194.89, San Mateo, California-based Coremetrics said today in a statement. Sales of luxury goods rose 24 percent. Coremetrics, owned by International Business Machines Corp., is an analytics company that tracks online consumer spending and shopping behavior.

Cyber Monday -- the day consumers return to work after the weekend following Thanksgiving and continue to shop online -- is an indicator of how the rest of the holiday season is shaping up.

"Consumers this year appear much more willing to open their wallets and are turning to online stores for the convenience," said John Squire, chief strategy officer of Coremetrics. "Retailers have done an exceptional job across the board of appealing to consumers with highly personalized promotions and a slew of free shipping promotions."

Create a More Connected Minnesota

MPR News is your trusted resource for the news you need. With your support, MPR News brings accessible, courageous journalism and authentic conversation to everyone - free of paywalls and barriers. Your gift makes a difference.

Online retailers, led by Amazon.com Inc., will account for 7 percent of total retail sales in the U.S. this year, up from 6 percent last year, according to Forrester Research Inc.

The National Retail Federation coined the term Cyber Monday in 2005 to generate buzz around the first working day after Black Friday, which is the day after Thanksgiving and the traditional start to holiday shopping.

FLAT-SCREEN TVS

Amazon posted hundreds of Cyber Monday deals on its site, including one for a 47-inch (119-centimeter) television from Vizio Inc. for $599. The set regularly sells for $998.

Holiday sales over the Internet on Nov. 26, this year's Black Friday, tallied $648 million, a 9 percent increase from the corresponding day a year earlier, according to researcher ComScore, based in Reston, Virginia.

"So far e-commerce trends for the 2010 holiday season are encouraging," said Sandeep Aggarwal, an analyst at Caris & Co. in San Francisco.

Even so, it's still too early to declare the season a success, Imran Khan, an analyst at JPMorgan Chase & Co. in New York, said in a note to investors yesterday.

"With the biggest days of the holiday season still ahead, we would view these numbers with caution," Khan said.