Cyber Monday is Black Friday’s less harried sibling but by all indications will likely have consumers shelling out a record $1.2 billion dollars this year as they storm retail Web sites for deep, Web-only discounts. That’s opposed to the shoving-and-pushing-kind-of-shopping many were engaging in just a few days ago.

What some have considered a made-up event created to stir the holiday shopping pot, Cyber Monday has grown in importance over the years and now offers gift buyers some excellent deals. In fact, in 2006 it was only the 12th-biggest online spending day of the year. Last year it was the biggest, topping $1 billion. And this year, industry analysts are predicting it will do even better.

For one thing, online spending for Black Friday was reportedly up this year. According to ComScore, U.S. retail e-commerce spending rose 26% to $816 million on Black Friday compared with last year. In fact, 50 million Americans visited retail websites on Black Friday, a 35% increase from a year earlier, says digital analytics firm ComScore. The most-visited site was Amazon, followed by Walmart, Best Buy, Target and Apple.

Black Friday’s success bodes bodes well for the retail industry now that it’s Cyber Monday, which is typically when many office workers use their computers to shop on the job. About half the day’s online sales are expected to come from people at work.

Read more at The Los Angeles Times ^[1].