With early deals, how much will Cyber Monday buyers spend?

Adobe Digital Insights, which tracks retail sales nationwide, says this Cyber Monday will go down in history – nearly $3.4 billion in sales. And Cyber Monday could be the best day yet. Earlier this month, Adobe had lowered its online sales growth forecast to a single-digit percentage increase from 11%.

Online’s improving performance could be traced to greater comfort with online shopping, improved shipping speeds, and the desire to avoid the negatives of in-store holiday shopping (crowds, traffic, out-of-stocks, etc.). “It’s those once-a-year deals that I’m looking for today”, she said.

Cyber Monday, which is the Monday after Thanksgiving, has been the busiest day of the year for online shopping since 2010. Online sales on Black Friday surged 21.6 per cent from previous year to a record $3.34 billion, Adobe reported. But Black Friday, which this year was on November 25, saw consumers already buying on their computers and mobile devices, according to ADI. Amazon has been running a promotion called 35 days of Black Friday deals, starting November 1.

Cyber Monday 2016 follows Black Friday that spills right over the weekend.

Online sales have also been stretching out more and more.

Retail research firm ShopperTrak released preliminary data that showed shopper visits to stores fell a combined 1 percent during Thanksgiving and Black Friday when compared with the same days in 2015. Shoppers are flocking online Monday, Nov. 28, 2016, as “Cyber Monday” sales hit their peak.

E-commerce sales rose 10.8 percent for the two-day period, while sales at physical stores grew 8.6 percent, according to First Data, which analyzed online and in-store payments across different forms of payment cards from almost one million merchants Thanksgiving and Friday. But clothing and accessories stores saw shoppers on average spend $80.55, down from $81.63 a year ago amid heavy discounting. E-commerce thrives the most during this season.

The National Retail Federation expects 122 million people to shop online on Cyber Monday, up from 121 million in 2015. Customers had ordered more than 100,000 toys in just the first few hours of Black Friday, the retailer said.

A reminder though, with so many shopping online you should be aware of scams.

IBM data points to a similar trend, with online sales up about 10% year over year in the weeks leading up to the holiday weekend.

Electronics tend to be big sellers on Cyber Monday, but Amazon says so far this holiday season, the “Most-watched deal” has been the mermaid tail blanket.