By Jeanine Poggi, TheStreet.com

 

Cyber Monday pumped up the volume on an otherwise middling kickoff to the holiday shopping season.

 

Online sales jumped 14% on Monday compared to a year earlier, according to Coremetrics, an Internet analytics firm. Consumers bought 30% more items than they did in 2008. While Web retailers account for 10% of holiday sales, they’re becoming more influential.

 

On Black Friday, 195 million shoppers visited stores, but each shopper spent $341.31, on average, down 8% from $372.57 last year, according to the National Retail Federation.

 

Bing: More on Cyber Monday

 

Amazon.com and eBay were in the spotlight yesterday, as the two major retailers without brick-and-mortar locations. Their shares gained 5.4% and 3.2%, respectively.

 

Overstock.com said its sales on Monday were about 10% above their record-breaking Friday levels, the Wall Street Journal reported.

 

Clothing and jewelry e-retailers were the most popular destinations, which bodes well for companies like Blue Nile. Apparel companies saw the dollar amount consumers spent rise 26.4%, while jewelers jumped 14.3%, according to Coremetrics.

 

Sports apparel and gear reported a surge of 55% in the number of new customers visiting their sites, but the average dollar amount consumers spent per order slipped 3.1%.

 

Department stores also saw a 33% increase in new shoppers coming to their sites. Kohl's site crashed over the holiday weekend because of an influx in traffic, but it was up and running in time for Cyber Monday.

 

"We expect to see one more spike in online spending when the final 'free-shipping-is-ending' promotions are announced," John Squire, chief strategy officer at Coremetrics, said in a statement.

 

Coremetrics gets its data from more than 500 retailers, including Nordstrom and Macy's.

 

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