eCommerce

New York -- Cyber Monday online sales are up 17.5% over the same period last year as of 6 p.m. EST on Monday, according to IBM Digital Analytics Benchmark.

Mobile traffic accounted for 29.4% of all online traffic, up almost 62% compared to the same period last year.

In other findings from IBM:

UPS is trying to capitalize on this year’s shorter holiday shopping season, which is six days fewer than last year’s, by touting the shipping services its UPS Store offers.

The UPS Store has a network of 4,300 employees at locally owned and operated centers ready to pack and ship everything from fragile glass ornaments to surfboards and golf clubs. The store also offers customers a Pack and Ship Guarantee.

Consumers who prefer packing their own gifts themselves can obviously still ship them via the UPS Store, but are asked to do the following:

New York -- There are significant similarities between Millennial and Boomer shoppers. A study of Millennial and Boomer purchasing trends conducted by Radius Global Market Research shows that while there are certainly differences, there are also significant similarities between the groups.

Ascena Retail Group, parent company of Lane Bryant, Dressbarn and Justice, may have just reported same store sales growth across all its formats and achieved Thanksgiving weekend sales objectives, but president and CEO David Jaffe remains cautious in his outlook for the remainder of the holiday season.

As so many other retailers have noted in recent weeks, Jaffe said this year’s highly competitive, promotional and compressed holiday season makes it difficult to know how the next few weeks will play out, despite the company’s recent performance.

There were more than 1 billion page views on Walmart.com from Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday, which the retailer said made for record sales.

Walmart said Cyber Monday 2013 was the biggest online sales day in its history and that the five-day period from Thanksgiving to Cyber Monday was the highest five-day stretch in online sales to date, but stopped short of disclosing actual sales results.

Mountain View, Calif. – While shipping costs (21%) and registration (20%) were the features that users said needed the most improvement respectively, consumers felt very comfortable purchasing from the Web's top online retailers on Cyber Monday.

U.S. shoppers made Cyber Monday the biggest online shopping day in history with a 20.6% increase in online sales, according to the latest cloud-based analytics findings from IBM. Mobile sales led the way, exceeding 17% of total online sales, an increase of 55.4% year-over-year.  

Cyber Monday also capped the highest five-day online sales period on record — from Thanksgiving Day through Cyber Monday — which grew 16.5% over the same period in 2012.

Armonk, N.Y. - Shoppers made Cyber Monday 2013 the biggest online shopping day in history with a 20.6% increase in online sales. The latest cloud-based analytics findings from IBM show that mobile sales led the way, exceeding 17% of total online sales, an increase of 55.4% year-over-year.

Cyber Monday also capped what IBM data indicates is the highest five-day online sales period on record from Thanksgiving Day through Cyber Monday, which grew 16.5% from the same period in 2012.