So far, online shoppers are spending more this year than they did last year, a trend that bodes well for Web retailers as the holiday shopping season kicks into high gear.

Through the Thanksgiving weekend, comScore Networks reports online spending (excluding travel-related purchases) during the first 28 days of November totaled $7.93 billion, a 24% increase over last year.

Specifically, sales grew 27% year-over-year for the week ending Nov. 27 and including the day after Thanksgiving - a traditionally high-volume shopping day known as "Black Friday" for its potential to swing a retailer from operating at a deficit to achieving profitability, or operating "in the black."

While online sales hit $305 million on Black Friday, it wasn't last week's biggest Web shopping day, according to comScore. Sales were strongest during the Thanksgiving week on Tuesday, Nov. 22, when online retail sales hit nearly $441 million, a 55% gain over the same Tuesday in 2004.

Web buyers quickly exceeded that milestone this week, however. Online spending on Monday, Nov. 28, hit $485 million, up 26% over last year's post-Thanksgiving Monday.

The Monday after Thanksgiving is a day industry watchers have kept close tabs on in recent years. Dubbed "Cyber Monday" or "Black Monday" by some, it's the day many employees begin their heavy-duty online shopping from the comfort of high-speed, secure Internet connections at work.

Indeed, data from Akamai shows a lot of Web shopping activity occurred during business hours on Monday. Traffic at online retail sites peaked for the day between 2:00 p.m. and 4:00 p.m. EDT, when Akamai logged 2.78 million visitors per minute in its Net Retail Index. The index tracks global e-commerce trends using page-view data drawn from 200 retail sites that use Akamai's content delivery platform.

So far, top retailers' Web sites have kept up with the action, according to Keynote Systems. Keynote monitors the performance of major retail Web sites - including Amazon.com, Best Buy, Target and Wal-Mart - through its E-Commerce Web Transaction Performance Index.

Over the Thanksgiving weekend, Web transaction times were slightly above typical levels, but well within normal tolerance, Keynote reports. The average time it took to complete a search and make a purchase varied from 12 seconds during the day on Saturday to 11 seconds on Sunday. Reliability was above 95% on both weekend days.
 
Looking ahead, industry watchers expect online sales to surpass Monday's high as the holiday shopping season continues.