Happy Cyber Monday, dear readers. Before we took a little break for Turkey Day here last week, I wrote about the anticipated sales of Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving. Today comScore released an update of holiday season e-commerce spending covering the first 23 days (Nov. 1 - 23) of the 2007 holiday season/ . More than $9.3 billion has been spent online during the season to-date, marking a 17% gain versus the corresponding days last year. Online retail spending was strong on both Thanksgiving Day (up 29% to $272 million) and Black Friday (up 22% to $531 million), outpacing the season-to-date growth rate.ComScore projects Cyber Monday sales of $700 million, easily outpacing the total of $608 million last year.According to a Shop.org survey conducted this weekend by BIGresearch , 72.0 million consumers plan to shop online from home or at work today, up from 60.7 million in 2006 and 59.0 million in 2005. The survey found that 31.9 % of adults will shop on Cyber Monday, up 17.3 % over last year (27.2%). "Retailers will be unveiling a variety of incredible one-day sales on Cyber Monday to bring consumers to their websites," said Scott Silverman, Executive Director of Shop.org. "Online retailers consider Cyber Monday a virtual Black Friday and will be offering promotions that will be tough to beat later in the holiday season."It makes sense to me. Let's face it -- who isn't wiped out today after being with family and friends for the holiday? Not to mention, we are all back to work. I personally avoided any retail outlet this weekend. Driving by a local mall, I couldn't see one parking spot.So what's the lure of shopping online today? First off, we're barraged with messages of the holidays being right around the corner. We've seen and heard about a bunch of deals and promotions. It's no surprise that according to a Shop.org/Shopzilla eHoliday Survey, 72.2 % of online retailers are planning a special promotion for Cyber Monday, up from 42.7 % just two years ago. Promotions will range from specific deals (29.9%) to one-day sales (28.9%) to free shipping on all purchases (24.7%).A Shop.org survey conducted by BIGresearch found that 54.5 % of office workers with Internet access, or 68.5 million people, will shop for holiday gifts from work, up substantially from 50.7 % in 2006. The company has put together a shopping mall site that includes over 500 retailers like Barnes & Noble, Lands' End and Sears. Customers' top reasons for shopping online instead of in stores is the ability to shop at any time of day (58.5%), not wanting to fight crowds in stores (43.8%), and the general convenience of shopping on the Internet (38.7%). Shoppers also said they like the ability to compare prices online (36.2%) and that items are often easier to find online than in stores (29.9%). I'm sure if you surf around you'll see promotions for free shipping, free shipping upgrades and online-only deals. I'll leave you with one final thought: If online consumers can't resist the allure of Cyber Monday, do eTailers covet the bulk of the traffic?