The online shopping extravaganza that is the Monday after Thanksgiving may be a two-year-old fabrication which pains you to no end, but you can't dispute the numbers. This year, online retail spending on Cyber Monday jumped 84 percent over the previous month's daily average, according to ComScore. Cash registers e-commerce transaction servers rang up $733 million in sales, up 21 percent over last year. There was also a 38 percent increase in the number of online buyers this year. So expect to hear the term for years to come. Cyber Monday, Cyber Monday, Cyber Monday!

Scripps, having spent $525 million to acquire the Shopzilla product search engine in 2005, is now looking to unload it on a new owner for about the same amount. CEO Kenneth Lowe, the mastermind of both the HGTV cable channel and the Shopzilla deal, wasn't able to do much with this online fixer-upper. Scripps saw its interactive revenues and profits drop in the most recent quarter.

At 2:30 a.m. yesterday, heavy holiday traffic began to overwhelm the infrastructure behind Yahoo's hosted stores, a Yahoo spokesperson told the Wall Street Journal. The first Monday after Thanksgiving — Cyber Monday — was expected to account for 12 percent of 2007's holiday-season online sales.

Fox Business conducted "man-on-the-street" interviews for "Cyber Monday." (Note: I want to gouge my eyes out when I hear that ridiculous name, myth or not.) The object? To see if people really were shopping online more. Let's not even get into the question of why Fox thought they'd find people shopping online if they were interviewed on the street. Even so, a Fox reporter found Peter Perweiler at the ESPN Zone in Washington, D.C.

The Monday after Thanksgiving used to be the Ron Paul of holiday-season shopping. Called "Cyber Monday," it was an Internet-only creation, as relevant to real-life commerce as the Web-friendly presidential candidate is to national politics. Which is to say, not very. That's changed.

Despite Sears's best efforts to slow things down with a faulty website, Black Friday this year saw $531 million in online retail spending. That's up about 22 percent over last year. Here's the chart from ComScore:

A reader reports Sears.com has been down for much of Black Friday, the most overhyped shopping day of the year. They never learn, do they? Last year, Macy's and Wal-Mart saw outages. The Sears site is currently displaying a "high traffic volume" excuse page. Anyone know what knocked the site offline? Nothing on this year's Black Friday list of specials strikes me as a must-click.

Just when ComScore had you worried that the subprime mortgage crisis would slow down e-commerce, they come back today with good news. According to the she-loves-me-she-loves-me-not online-metrics firm, this holiday season's first 18 days saw more than $7 billion in spending, a 17-percent gain versus the corresponding days last year. Here's the chart.

A former PayPal executive recently pointed out that PayPal, as a division of eBay, has swelled to 7,000 employees — vastly more than it ever had as an independent concern. "What do those people do?" he asked. The growth in headcount had not led to a concomitant increase in inventiveness. Take, for example, the news, breathlessly reported by TechCrunch, that PayPal would roll out a "virtual credit card" for shopping even at stores that don't take PayPal. This would be more impressive had PayPal not rolled out the same product six years ago.

ComScore reports that October 2007 retail e-commerce increased 19 percent over the same month in 2006. Sounds healthy, until you look at the year-to-date numbers through September, which had 2007 on track for 21 percent growth. October sales are usually a leading indicator for how e-commerce fares during the holidays, so the slowing growth rate isn't good. What's the cause? The usual suspects: increasing mortgages and gas prices coupled with a decline in housing values. Just so long as I get my iPhone for Christmas, whatevs. Here's the gory chart if you're that kind of masochist.

Woot, the deal-a-day online retail site, offered first-generation Zunes for $150 in August — half price at the time. Then in September, Woot offered more Zunes, this time for $129. In October? $99. Are you seeing the pattern yet? Today, Woot is offering black or white Zunes for $150 $129 $99 $84.99. The Zune's price is falling faster than shares of Apple. After the jump, an excerpt from the product description that pretty much sums everything up.

Selling music on MySpace worked out so well for the now-downsized Snocap. Now, Zazzle.com is giving it a go, helping sell music merchandise through MySpace. It's the kind of original business plan you have to expect from a company's whose slogan is "infinite one-of-a-kindness."

FedEx anticipates a record holiday quarter as "e-commerce will continue to drive holiday spending." TNS Retail Forward predicts a $42 billion quarter, up 18.5 percent from last year. [Memphis Business Journal]

eBay is experimenting with cutting fees to list items for sale, a marked change from its history of price hikes. "We've not ever really decreased price, and it is possible that by decreasing price, we actually increase the revenues and vibrancy of this market in such a way that this price decrease is self-liquidating," said CEO Meg Whitman. Translation: The competitive threat from Amazon.com and Google is increasing. [AuctionBytes]

First $150, then $129. Now, Woot, the deal-a-day online retail site, is selling the first-gen Zune for $99 to any suckers who overpaid the first two times. No refund this time either. [Woot]

Overstock.com usually charges $2.95 per order for shipping. However, when they drop the shipping price to $1, the average order size skyrockets. Why does saving two dollars on a $400 bookcase make people more likely to buy? Everyone loves a bargain, while no one loves math. [NYT]

Amazon.com, which already offers same-day delivery in New York, Philadelphia, and Seattle, is now offering the service in Boston, Washington, D.C., and Baltimore. It's expensive: $14 to $19 per delivery, plus per-pound shipping fees. But for Amazon's core user base of the lazy and wealthy, same-day shipping is a no-brainer. Why no same-day service in the Bay Area, though? Unlike the East Coast, served by Amazon's Wilmington, Del., warehouse, and Seattle, which also has a local facility, northern California gets items shipped from Fernley, Nev., outside Reno. A bit too far, we suspect for economical same-day service. After the jump, the notice from Amazon.

Microsoft has bolstered its Internet commerce capabilities by purchasing Jellyfish, an innovative comparative shopping site, for an undisclosed sum. Jellyfish will remain a standalone entity, but Microsoft's Web team has signaled they will be borrowing Jellyfish's technology for use across the software giant's websites. Why? Jellyfish introduces a compelling new twist to comparison shopping. Listed retailers only pay Jellyfish when purchases are made — the more they pay, the higher they rank. In turn, Jellyfish kicks back half of its commission to the buyer, effectively lowering the price. It's an intriguing business model, taking a page from Google's ad-ranking technology and applying it to e-commerce. Just one problem: Microsoft's unfortunate track record of crushing the life out of small, innovative companies it acquires.

Woot has even more Zunes to "give" away at the bargain price of $129. Apparently the fire sale is to clear shelf space for a rumored Zune 2.0 — though at these prices, who will be left to buy the new version? [Woot]

E-commerce sites are now adding video, as the infomercial enters the age of YouTube. What amuses us about this trend is that it was an early business model, since abandoned, that YouTube founders Chad Hurley and Steve Chen entertained for their online-video startup. Having previously worked for eBay, Hurley and Chen briefly conceived of YouTube as a tool for embedding videos in online auctions. It's gone from far-out idea to standard practice in the cottage industry for selling-on-eBay tips.