“I don’t think that what happened is any telltale sign that people are breaking out their wallets,” said Sucharita Mulpuru, e-commerce analyst at Forrester Research . “A happy Web season doesn’t mean the economy is improving, just that people are becoming more mature from a technology standpoint and more savvy about finding good deals.” 
 
 Some online retailers took a rosier view. 
 
 “I don’t think we’re just pulling sales forward,” said Peter Cobb, co-founder and senior vice president of eBags. “I do think it’s a sign of a long, extended holiday season.” 
 
 Over all, online sales are expected to increase 15 percent this holiday season, more than last year and significantly more than the 2.8 percent increase expected offline. Shoppers spent about 38 percent of their total weekend budget online, a slight increase over last year, according to the National Retail Federation. On Black Friday, traditionally a bricks-and-mortar shopping day, people spent $816 million online, 26 percent more than last year, comScore said. 
 
 But many shoppers held out for Monday, when they expected deep discounts online. Seventy-eight percent of e-commerce sites offered promotions, according to Shop.org, an industry group. Almost half offered discounts, and a third had free shipping. 
 
 “We were all surprised last year when we saw it turned out to be the biggest day of the season,” said Gian Fulgoni, chairman of comScore and an e-commerce expert. “But more and more retailers have become a part of the Cyber Monday kickoff, more and more consumers are aware of it and know there are special deals coming — and you put that together and you’ve got an important day.” 
 
 EBags, which offered 30 percent off handbags and luggage on Monday, said as of 7 p.m. Eastern time that sales were up 45 percent over last year, the biggest day in its history. Wayfair, one of the biggest online home goods retailers, reported a 30 percent increase in revenue midday, while sales at Ideeli, the flash sale site, were up 40 percent. Etsy, the online marketplace for homemade goods, said sales were up 80 percent. 
 
 Mobile shopping drove online sales on Monday, because people returning to work after the holiday shopped on their lunch break or under the conference table in a meeting, said Claudia Lombana, shopping specialist at eBay . As of 2 p.m. Monday, PayPal recorded a sixfold increase in mobile sales compared with last year. 
 
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 “It shows the incredible lift of this day,” said Mr. Cobb. “This will be the biggest day of the season, the year and actually the history of the company.” 
 
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 Still, there are naysayers who view the day as more hype than reality. At Blue Nile , the online jeweler, the last day for free shipping by Christmas remains the biggest sales day, said Mark Vadon, Blue Nile’s chairman. 
 
 “The majority of consumers are procrastinators and they’ll wait as long as they can,” he said. “Cyber Monday is the start of the wave, not the top of the wave.” 
 
 The day is nevertheless important, Mr. Vadon said, because it is the first time online retailers collect substantial data on where they will need more inventory and where they should offer promotions during the crucial holiday season. 
 
 Many retailers had such high hopes for the day that they tried to expand it. Toys “R” Us offered Cyber Monday deals on Sunday night and will continue them through the week, as will Target , which went so far as to offer Cyber Monday deals in September. 
 
 “We are pleased with the reaction to our online sales, and are excited about the start of Cyber Week at Target.com ,” Lee Henderson, a Target spokesman, said Monday. 
 
 Cyber Monday was dreamed up in 2005 by Shop.org as a marketing ploy to kick off online holiday shopping. More people had high-speed Internet at work, the thinking went, the easier to shop with. But the day was far from the biggest shopping day of the holiday season, coming in at No. 12, according to comScore. 
 
 Still, by 2007, despite the prevalence of high-speed Internet in homes, three-quarters of retailers were running Cyber Monday promotions, and shoppers and the media had latched on to the day as a new tradition. 
 
 “It was crazy, not what we were expecting,” said Ellen Davis, vice president of the National Retail Federation, which includes Shop.org . 
 
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 Now, retailers, hoping to stand out, are borrowing Shop.org’s formula to invent their own days. 
 
 You might have missed Sofa Sunday, which Catalog Spree, an iPad app with retailers’ catalogs, has nicknamed the Sunday after Thanksgiving, when it predicted people would shop on tablets on their sofas. Coming soon are Mobile Sunday, which PayPal christened the second Sunday in December, and Free Shipping Day on Dec. 16, brought to you by FreeShipping.org . And beware of Red Tuesday, which the Association of Independent Consumer Credit Counseling Agencies warns will hit shoppers who go into debt on Black Friday and Cyber Monday. 
 
 At Amazon — where Cyber Monday last year edged out the last day with free shipping by Christmas as its busiest day — deals included a $500 KitchenAid mixer for $260, a $599 Panasonic Camcorder for $299 and a $299 Microsoft Xbox 360 with games for $199. Gilt, the flash sale site, had new sales every three hours on Monday, including a chartered Virgin America flight for 145 friends for $60,000. 
 
 “The retailers are driving a lot of this,” said Mitch Spolan, senior vice president for national sales at LivingSocial, which showed national television and radio ads through Monday to push its promotions. “Last year it was the biggest day of the year, and as retailers know that, they compete. It’s a sport.” 
 
 And Ms. Mulpuru said: “Just like Thanksgiving weekend shopping is a ritual in America, when people go with their families to look for deals, as soon as they go to the office on Monday they look online.” She added, “It’s almost ceremonial.” 

 Take door-buster specials, add early opening hours, and mix in a good measure of pent-up demand and you have a recipe for a strong start to the holiday shopping season. 
 
 And retailers liked it so much, expect to see a version of it — albeit smaller — today, as a record number of shoppers are expected to go online to snag Cyber Monday deals, which at some retailers, began Sunday night. 
 
 Black Friday sales are estimated to have risen 6.6 percent from the same time last year, according to ShopperTrak, a Chicago-based company that tracks mall traffic. That estimated $11.4 billion in retail purchases represents the biggest dollar amount ever spent on that day. 
 
 The National Retail Federation estimates 226 million shoppers visited stores and websites over the Black Friday weekend, up from 212 million last year. 
 
 The survey, which interviewed more than 3,800 adults, reports that the average holiday shoppers spent $398.62 over the Thanksgiving weekend, up from $365.34 last year. Conducted by BIGResearch, the study also found that online spending was significant, with shoppers shelling out an average of $150.53 on the web, or 37.8 percent of their total weekend outlay. 
 
 And the spending binge wasn’t isolated to just Friday. The shopping started Thursday, as record number of consumers purchased items on their smartphones and tablets, presumably at the Thanksgiving dinner table, or headed out to early openings at stores such as Toys ‘R Us and Wal-Mart Stores , which didn’t even wait until midnight Friday to begin their Black Friday deals. The shopping should continue today, as record numbers of shoppers are expected to go online seek Cyber Monday deals. 
 
 Deal Gap Closing 
 
 Cyber Mondayhas become a more significant each year. Retailers embraced it and are offering bigger and bigger discounts online — and more and more shoppers are coming for them. That is what is what makes the event, which initially began as marketing gimmick to promote online shopping, more important each year.
– Happy Cyber Monday, the day when people who didn’t feel like braving Black Friday can still get half off a Kitchenaid mixer on Amazon. Last year was a huge hit, and analysts don’t expect today to be any different, as Cyber Monday has become more successful each year. A record number of retailers are expected to draw in shoppers with promotional emails, and a record number of shoppers are expected to take the bait, CNBC reports. In addition, the gap between Black Friday and Cyber Monday is closing; last year, Black Friday had 5% more deals than Cyber Monday, compared to 10% the year before. A whopping 78% of online retailers are offering promotions today, from discounts to flash sales to free shipping, the New York Times notes; many are expecting today to be the biggest shopping day of the season. One reason for the growing popularity of Cyber Monday is an increase in the general popularity of online shopping; research shows the Web is now the No. 1 shopping destination. But just because spending is up over the past few days, one analyst warns that it remains to be seen what recession shoppers will spend over the rest of the holiday season. One thing is certain: Copycats are sure to follow. Already we’ve had “Merry Monday” (last week) and “Sofa Sunday” (yesterday); coming soon are Mobile Sunday and Free Shipping Day.