This year, U.S. online sales could top $700 Million.
This is a new record for online spending, according to comScore Inc.
If comScore's prediction proves correct, the figure for Cyber Monday would be a 15% increase over last year's sales of $608 million.
ComScore said the hottest product category was video games, consoles and accessories, which was up 134% from last year.
Internet performance analysis company Keynote Systems Inc. said that one-third of the 30 major brick and mortar retail sites it monitors for its holiday retail index showed significant slowdowns. Site outages caused purchasers at sites such as The Buy.com and Lowe's Home Improvement to abandon their purchases. The extensive day long outages of years past, such as when I managed online sites in the '90s and into '01 seem to be passe.
The conclusion seems to be that people are more loyal to their purchases and that they wait to use their faster online experience at work to buy.