Forget the day after Thanksgiving. This is ... Cyber Monday

Nothing evokes the holiday retail season more than shoppers lined up outside of department stores at 4:59 a.m., the day after Thanksgiving, waiting to snap up the hottest deals.

The Internet has its own, albeit less visual, start to the holiday season: Cyber Monday. It marks the day folks return to the office after Thanksgiving, replete with access to superfast workplace Internet broadband connections.

JupiterResearch forecasts online shoppers will spend $32 billion this holiday season, an 18 percent increase versus a year ago.

The online channel is becoming more important to traditional retailers that sell their wares not only in physical stores but through catalogs and online.

Nearly four in 10 multichannel retailers — as they are so named — said they planned to start their holiday marketing early, while nearly two-thirds began promotions Nov. 4, according to the 2006 eHoliday Mood Study conducted by BizRate.

Online retail juggernaut Amazon.com last week introduced a unique campaign that allows consumers to vote for one of four steep discounts.

Customers chose the Xbox 360 Core System, and 1,000 units went up for sale on Thanksgiving morning. The price: $100 a pop.

Most online retailers offer free shipping to customers who purchase a certain dollar amount. That's changed this year, with retailers offering free shipping "without restrictions."

Already, shoppers are in holiday mode. Online searches for "Black Friday," the term given to shopping on the day after Thanksgiving because it puts retailers ahead, bested searches for "Thanksgiving" by early this month, according to Yahoo! Buzz. Searches for "Cyber Monday" were also up from the year before.

And consumers spent $6.35 billion online between Nov. 1 and 19, a 23 percent jump compared with a year ago, comScore Networks said.

PayPal's Susan Phillips said the busiest shopping day online isn't Cyber Monday, but rather the second Monday in December.

Last year, PayPal users spent $101 million that day, up 39 percent from the year before. "They've pushed back the date by which you can order online" and get gifts to doorsteps by Christmas, Phillips said.

One more interesting tidbit:

Women conducted the bulk of searches about Friday; mostly men search for the term "Cyber Monday."

We're certain they'll be online today buying jewelry for their significant others.

Monica Soto Ouchi: 206-515-5632 or msoto@seattletimes.com