Shoppers headed online in droves on Cyber Monday, according to the latest stats: 32.5 million visitors entered virtual stores, up 10 percent from a year ago.
Nielsen Online, the Internet measurement firm, said that eBay (EBAY) was the top destination, drawing nearly 11 million visitors. Next were Amazon (AMZN), with more than 7 million, and Wal-Mart (WMT) with about 5 million.
And consumers gave their credit cards a workout. ComScore said shoppers spent $733 million online on Monday, a 21 percent gain from the same day a year ago.
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What were the herds buying versus the week before? Think gear like Apple’s (AAPL) iPod and Nintendo’s (NTDOY) Wii. Consumer electronics and games saw the most growth, followed by music, video and books. This was yet another bit of news that bodes well for Apple; Nielsen’s Black Friday numbers showed the company’s web site surged past Dell’s (DELL) to become the computer maker most visited from home PCs on that popular shopping day. Nielsen estimated that 1.4 million people visited Apple.com, up 111 percent from a year before. Dell’s traffic rose 29 percent, to 1.3 million.
The Cyber Monday numbers: