• by Karl Greenberg , November 30, 2010

Cyber Monday was big and kept to the trend of growing Web commerce. Brand Keys says that commerce, up between 15% and 20% versus last year, topped $1 billion on Monday.  

According to the Brand Keys Holiday Survey, Amazon was the most-visited consumer site. Wal-Mart and Apple were tied for second place, followed by Target, Zappos, Best Buy and Dell, Kohl's, Overstock and QVC, Lands' End and LL Bean, JCPenney, and Macy's.

From a sample of 16,000 consumers 18 to 65 years old drawn from nine U.S. census regions, 68% said they visited Amazon; and 65% named the second-place Walmart and Apple sites. Fifty-two percent said they went to Zappos. A quarter of respondents said they went to Macy's Web site. The firm says it predicts a 3% increase in holiday sales this year, online and off.

Holiday retail data through Cyber Monday show big sales growth from paid search among actively managed campaigns. Performics says data representing clients within its Holiday Retail Group showed sales up 60%, and that Thanksgiving Day sales grew by 89%, versus 22% on Black Friday.

Same-store sales, order volume and average order size are up year-over-year, per the firm, and further distance themselves from the bad 2008 holiday season. The company says pre-Thanksgiving Week same-store sales were up 14%; and during Thanksgiving Week sales were up 30%.

Robert Passikoff, president of Brand Keys, says one of the key issues is that Black Friday basically has lost its impact.

"The retailers themselves keep changing the marketing paradigm; for instance, they have started advertising Christmas the day after they started advertising back to school specials. Basically, what we have done is added from 60 to 75 more days of marketing prior to last Friday."

Passikoff points out that the Cyber Monday versus Black Friday game is irrelevant because marketers don't really care where people get their products.

"There's still a heritage, which is the day after Thanksgiving -- people regard it as a social event. Retailers ratchet up. But just because there are more platforms upon which one can place money and get product doesn't mean you will end up spending more than you intended to.

"The economy is still down and people are going to spend what they can afford. Kohl's doesn't care whether you went to a store or to Kohls.com as long as you didn't go to Macy's."