SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Online retail spending rose 15 percent on the all-important Monday after Thanksgiving from a year earlier, sounding a positive note in an otherwise bleak holiday season.
Still, the data from tracking firm comScore Inc also found e-commerce spending for the holiday season to date was off 2 percent.
Stifel Nicolaus analyst Scott Devitt said he was "pleasantly surprised" to see the 15 percent jump on "Cyber Monday." "The comScore data are certainly a psychologically relevant positive data point," he said.
Shares of Internet retailers rose in morning trading before falling back as the overall market turned negative on persistent worries about the deepening recession.
Pent-up demand, combined with special promotions and doorbuster deals, sent consumers shopping online and in brick-and-mortar stores over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend this year after months of penny-pinching.
And on Cyber Monday, when consumers log on -- often from work -- to seek better deals than they saw on visits to physical stores, online spending reached $846 million, up 15 percent from a year earlier, comScore found.
That made this Monday the second-heaviest online spending day on record, behind the $881 million spent on December 10, 2007, comScore said.
But most retail experts doubt that the momentum seen over the holiday weekend will continue. This year's holiday season is expected to be one of the bleakest in years as rising unemployment and tighter lending standards strain consumers' buying power.
At U.S. brick-and-mortar stores, sales rose a mere 0.9 percent during the three-day holiday weekend beginning Friday, said ShopperTrak on Wednesday.
But traffic was down 19 percent in the same period, marking the largest three-day drop since the company began tracking that data. ShopperTrak monitors more than 50,000 retail locations.
Amazon.com Inc and online auctioneer eBay Inc have both warned that the holiday season would be challenging, and experts have voiced concerns that deep discounts from traditional brick-and-mortar chains could take sales from their online rivals.
Hitwise, an Internet tracking company, found that traffic to the top 500 retail websites was down 1 percent on Cyber Monday this year. But traffic at Amazon -- the most-visited online retailer on Cyber Monday -- rose 21 percent, while Walmart.com, which ranked second, rose 6 percent, according to the company.
Figures from Nielsen Online were better. That research service found a 10 percent traffic increase on Cyber Monday, with eBay, Amazon and Walmart.com taking the top spots.
Although Cyber Monday is rarely the heaviest online shopping day -- that tends to occur later in December, about a week before Christmas -- comScore said the solid online spending showing for the first Monday of the traditional holiday shopping season was an encouraging sign for retailers.
"Consumers are clearly responding positively to retailers' aggressive online discounts," Chairman Gian Fulgoni said in a statement.
For the holiday season to date, from November 1 to December 1, online spending stood at $12.03 billion, down 2 percent from $12.22 billion a year earlier. On Thanksgiving Day, e-commerce spending came to $288 million, up 6 percent.
On the day after Thanksgiving, which is known as Black Friday and traditionally kicks off the holiday shopping season, comScore said online spending inched up 1 percent to $534 million. Internet spending was up 13 percent for the four-day period from Black Friday through Cyber Monday.
Shares of Amazon were up 8.8 percent at $44.83 in afternoon trading after rising as high as $45.50 earlier in the session. Blue Nile Inc was up 4 percent at $24 after rising to $24.95.
Overstock.com was up 3.3 percent to $10.00, but earlier had risen to $10.45. EBay, which had risen as high as $13.91, rose 1.9 percent to $13.50.
(Reporting by Alexandria Sage and Karen Jacobs, editing by Maureen Bavdek and Lisa Von Ahn)
