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Record Sales, Traffic For Cyber Monday

"Cyber Monday" turned in record numbers after all. Maybe people bought into the hype (and the Web-wide holiday sales). Or maybe yesterday's strong sales simply indicate a healthy year ahead for online shopping.

ComScore Networks, which tracks Web traffic, expects Cyber Monday's online sales to hit around $600 million this year, a 24% jump over last year. Meanwhile, comScore said more people eschewed long lines at malls on Black Friday, spending $434 million online, a 42% increase from last year. Overall, consumers have spent $8.31 billion in nontravel purchases on the Web since Nov. 1, the firm said, up 23% from 2005.

Advertisers will note that increased sales have corresponded with higher overall traffic to retail sites. Akamai Technologies, a large Web traffic management firm, reported a 19% hike over last year in the traffic it sent to online commerce sites versus past Cyber Mondays. Shopping.com, an eBay subsidiary, said it was sending 40% more traffic to its retail partners than in past years.

Offline sales, of course, still far surpass that of the online world. "Black Friday" alone generated nearly $9 million in sales, while Saturday added another $5.6 billion to the weekend haul for retailers.

Read the whole story at The Wall Street Journal »

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