Diamond and jewelry Web sites were among the big winners on Cyber Monday, according to Shop.org. Traffic to Ice.com was up more than 70 percent and sales rose 82 percent. Diamond.com traffic rose 58 percent and sales increased 65 percent.

Traffic to retail Web sites on Cyber Monday rose 26 percent, year-over-year, according to the Hitwise Retail 100 Index.

A recent Shop.org survey conducted by BIGresearch found that 72 million people planned to shop on Cyber Monday. Additionally, comScore has reported that Cyber Monday sales reached $733 million this year.

CyberMonday.com, a one-stop shop for consumers looking for Cyber Monday deals, received more than 1.5 million unique visitors on Cyber Monday alone, five times more than one year ago, according to Mall Networks, which powers the site. The site offers promotions and special deals from more than 550 online retailers.

“The holiday season is off to a strong start, but the challenge for online retailers now becomes finding ways to keep Cyber Monday shoppers coming back all holiday season long,” said Scott Silverman, Shop.org executive director.

Other retailers who saw strong increases for Cyber Monday include:

* BabyAge: Sales rose 231 percent over Cyber Monday 2006
* Bealls: Sales rose 45 percent over last year
* eBags: Traffic increased 34.2 percent and sales rose 70.3 percent

Cyber Monday was a term coined by Shop.org in 2005. Shop.org is the network for retailers online. Founded in 1996, Shop.org became a division of the National Retail Federation in January 2001.

Additional online retail stories for the holiday season can be found here.

JCK