Retailers were already desperate for a holiday surge this year, with several opening at midnight on Friday morning, rather than the standard 4:00 or 5:00 AM. Analysts said this growth over the kick off to the 2011 holiday shopping season was welcomed--and necessary for store morale.

From USA Today:

Online traffic was up 43% from last year, says content delivery network Akamai, and online sales were up 15% over Cyber Monday 2010 as of 3 p.m. ET, says IBM Smarter Commerce, a Web performance analytics firm for 500 of the largest retail websites.

Matt Shay, CEO of the National Retail Federation, says sales on Cyber Monday and over the long weekend show retail is "providing a needed shot in the arm to our nascent recovery."

Electronics are the most popular items this year, with sales up 26% over last year, and products such as flat-screen TVs and digital cameras are leading the pack, says PriceGrabber. EBay's Cyber Monday special Monday morning on a white Apple iPad2 for $449 sold out in less than two hours, says Richelle Parham, chief marketing officer for eBay North America.

Online giants like Amazon and eBay saw the biggest jump in consumers, as they clicked to buy everything from electronics to apparel.

eBay saw a jump of more than 17 percent in its client base on Monday, while Amazon claimed 50 percent more visitors over the holiday weekend than any other online retailer. Analysts said this could be due to the company's release of the new Kindle Fire, a competitor of Apple's iPad 2.

Cyber Monday was first coined as a term in 2005 when retailers sought to extend the holiday shopping push into the work week. Last year's sales topped $1 billion, but analysts expect Cyber Monday 2011 to top that record.