Will Cyber Monday Save the Holiday Season for Retailers?

Black Friday may be deeply ingrained in the American shopping psyche, but Black Friday sales this year were relatively weak according to The National Retail Federation.

NRF said compared with last year, consumers spent about four percent less over the holiday weekend this year – despite the fact that many more retailers were open on Thanksgiving than a year ago.

While industry analyst, ShopperTrak saw a 2.3 percent spending increase Thursday and Friday, overall Black Friday spending at brick and mortar stores fell compared to last year.

Bill Martin, president of ShopperTrak told CNNMoney that the extra shopping afforded by the fact so many stores were open Thanksgiving was, "Spreading the jam a bit thinner over a larger piece of bread."

The National Retail Federation, however, maintained that its forecast of almost four percent growth in holiday sales was still valid. According to the NRF, 141 million Americans shopped during the four day Thanksgiving weekend, up just 1.2 percent over a year ago.

Much of that came from online sales. Consumer spending at brick and mortar stores fell almost nine percent over the weekend from the same period last year.

As a matter of fact, comScore SCOR reported that online shoppers spent 21 percent more this year Thursday and 15 percent more Black Friday than they did last year. The result for the two days was almost $2 billion spent over the period.

According to comScore, the big online winners were Amazon AMZN and eBay EBAY. That trend may continue on Cyber Monday according to NRF, which expects more than 131 million shoppers to go online for Cyber Monday deals. That represents two million more than the 129 million who shopped via smartphones, tablets, and computers last year.

Related: Mobile Commerce Rulers: Amazon, eBay & Wal-Mart

Many shoppers appear to believe they would get better deals by holding out until Cyber Monday. That belief might be reinforced by Shop.org’s eHoliday survey in which many retailers said they had optimized their mobile websites prior to this year’s holiday shopping season.

In the same survey 81.4 percent (8 out of 10) retailers said they planned to offer specific Cyber Monday deals. This led Shop.org Executive Director, Vicki Cantrell to say, “Regardless of the exciting online promotions we’ve already seen, retailers are prepared to pull out all the stops for their Cyber Monday shoppers.”

Shop.org, which coined the term, Cyber Monday, created a CyberMonday.com website designed to highlight promotions from hundreds of retailers who offer special Cyber Monday deals.

At the time of this writing, Jim Probasco had no position in any mentioned securities.