Maybe “Cyber Week” would be a better name.

Just as Black Friday spilled over into Thanksgiving night, Cyber Monday has gone from being a one-day event to a tentpole for more than a week’s worth of promotions and discounts. Online sales on Thanksgiving, historically not a banner day for e-commerce, jumped 17 percent, according to research conducted by IBM. On Black Friday, online sales grew by 21 percent.

As of noon ET on Cyber Monday, onlines sales were up 24.1 percent compared to last year, according to data from  International Business Machines Corp. In 2011, the early Cyber Monday year-over-year growth was 15 percent. IBM tracks transaction data from 500 U.S. retail websites.

This year’s kickoff to the holiday shopping season was intensely competitive, with retailers offering price-matching and pricing merchandise aggressively. Shoppers responded, spending $59.1 billion over Black Friday weekend, according to the National Retail Federation. Research company comScore said online shoppers spent a record $1 billion on Black Friday and predicted that today’s sales will hit $1.5 billion.

For the past couple of years, stores have pushed their Black Friday openings earlier in a bid to get shoppers off their computers and into stores. With stores opening as early as 8 p.m. on Thanksgiving this year, online retail upped the ante and started promotional blitzes even earlier.

Cyber Monday was first conceived in 2005, two years before the iPhone even existed. Today, ubiquity of smartphones and tablets also makes this spillover inevitable, as users comparison-shopped electronically even while in brick-and-mortar stores over the long weekend. And thanks to widespread penetration of residential broadband access, Americans don’t have to wait to get back to the office on Monday to have the entire Internet at their fingertips.

“Consumers shopped in store, online and on mobile devices simultaneously to get the best bargains,” IBM’s report noted.

“[Cyber Monday] continues to be strong, and what's happening is that we're seeing just more shift to the web channel overall even on other days like Black Friday and Thanksgiving,” said Forrester Research analyst Sucharita Mulpuru.

Amazon.com is a big likely winner for Cyber Monday sales, said Marshal Cohen, chief retail analyst at the NPD Group. “They’re doing a really good job of suggestive selling. They’re making the site much more efficient,” he said. “You have to basically put them in the forefront.”

Analysts had high hopes for big-box stores including Wal-Mart, Target and Best Buy, and said retailers with a strong online counterpart to their physical stores, like J. Crew, Ann Taylor, Apple and Williams-Sonoma, were in a good position to take advantage of Cyber Monday shopping. 

In an interview with CNBC Europe, Eric Abensur, group CEO of Venda, said that savvy retailers could avoid the threat of cannibalizing sales by using online and mobile promotions to drive customers to their physical stores, while other analysts said the strong showing over the weekend could be at today’s expense.

“Our sense is that while today is still the major day of the cyber period, it may not be off-the-charts historic,” said Joe Feldman, a senior analyst at Telsey Advisory Group. Feldman said overall spending is likely to grow over last year, but consumers are spreading out their purchases over a much longer time period than before.

“What we’re seeing is the front loading of the holiday business,” Cohen said. He said the early promotional hype could backfire if consumers’ appetite for spending fades. “They’ve sort of shot themselves in the foot.”

But Andrew Lipsman, vice president of industry analysis at comScore, Inc., disagreed with that assessment. “I think it's a misconception that Thanksgiving or Black Friday promotions must pull from Cyber Monday,” he said. “They may pull dollars from later in the season or represent incremental spending.”

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The biggest online shopping day of the year is now in sight, and retailers plan to pull out all the stops to get your business.

We're talking Cyber Monday.

“Most are going to offer special deals literally every hour on something unique, something distinctive, or something that is a huge bargain,” said Miro Copic, a professor of marketing at San Diego State University.

According to a survey done for the National Retail Federation, a record 85 percent of online retailers will offer special promotions on Cyber Monday. About four out of 10 will offer free shipping on all purchases that day. That’s up from just 13 percent last year. Another 30 percent will offer free shipping when a certain dollar amount is reached.

“There’s no question that one of shoppers’ favorite deals is free shipping – in fact, many expect it – and retailers are responding,” said Pam Goodfellow of BIGinsight which conducted the survey.

This seventh Cyber Monday should easily set a new e-commerce record with sales expected to hit $1.5 billion. That would be a 25 percent jump from last year’s $1.2 billion.

That’s still small when compared to the revenue generated at brick-and-mortar stores on Black Friday – $52 billion last year – but a big deal in the world of digital commerce.

“It’s the only billion dollar online shopping day of the year,” Prof. Copic noted. “There are a few days that approach that mark, but Cyber Monday is still the king of all online sales days throughout the year.”

What do shoppers plan to buy on Monday?

A survey done by the online coupon site FatWallet.com shows that people are looking for deals on clothing (70 percent), computers and tablets (64 percent), toys (50 percent) and appliances (34 percent). They also hope to find discounts on HD televisions and smartphones.

How good are the Cyber Monday deals?

“In many cases, they’re as good as or better than Black Friday discounts,” said Dan de Grandpre, CEO of dealnews.com. 

It isn’t hard to find well-known brands and popular products marked down by 50 percent or more – and you don’t have to stand in line or fight the crowds to get them. A few examples:

• Wal-Mart has a Samsung 55-inch LED Smart 3-D HDTV for just $1,498, a $1,000 savings.
• Sears is selling a Maytag washer and dryer set for $800, a savings of $430 on the pair.
• Kmart is slashing the price of diamond earrings by 75 percent.
• Target promises savings of up to 70 percent on housewares, electronics, clothing and toys.

Dealnews says expect big discounts on electronics from Amazon.com, BestBuy.com and Newegg.com.

Don’t wait until Monday
Now that Black Friday begins on Thursday, it should come as no surprise that Cyber Monday starts over the weekend.

The Sears and Kmart websites post their Cyber Monday deals on Sunday at 12 a.m.

Other big-name retailers, like Target.com and Amazon.com, kick off what they call their “Cyber Week” sales on Sunday. Walmart.com launches its Cyber Week savings on Saturday. 

And get this: For the first time, customers at Walmart.com will have the option to pay with cash. After the order is placed, you have 48 hours to pay at any Wal-Mart store. The order will ship to your home or the store – it’s your choice.

Some people may plan to shop from work on Cyber Monday, but a poll by pricegrabber.com, the online price comparison site, suggests that most (83 percent) will shop from home.

“People are going to shop from home before they go to work and then use their mobile devices throughout the day,” said PriceGrabber’s James Brown.

Thirty percent said they plan to shop between 5 a.m. and 9 a.m. Another third indicated they would be online between 9 a.m. and noon. Brown says retailers know this, so they will post some of their “juiciest products and best deals” early in the day.

Get ready now
You should prepare for Cyber Monday now. Go to the websites of your favorite stores and brands. Follow them on Twitter, “like” them on Facebook and download their apps. By doing this, you’ll get a jump on finding out about the sales and may be offered special promotions.

You can also sign up for price alerts from sites such as pricegrabber.com, fatwallet.com and dealnews.com.

By setting up a system now, you won’t have to watch and worry all day Monday to make sure you know when the items you want go on sale. Your boss will appreciate that!

The National Retail Federation’s CyberMonday.com website is a great place to look for bargains. The first Cyber Monday deals will be announced on Sunday, Nov. 25, around mid-afternoon Eastern Time.

Be safe when shopping online
You need to be careful anytime you shop online.  It’s important to make sure a scammer doesn’t ruin your holidays. The Better Business Bureau has prepared a list of tips for navigating Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

Herb Weisbaum is The ConsumerMan. Follow him on Facebook and Twitter or visit The ConsumerMan website.

The holiday season is almost here, and shopping online is likely to remain a popular alternative to the department store. The analytics company comScore said in a press release that consumers spent $35.3 billion online between November 1 and December 26, 2011, a 15 percent increase over the same period the previous year.

Online shopping offers a safe and comfortable respite from unruly crowds, but it has its own hazards. Many people who have gifts shipped to them have the packages left at their doorsteps by their carriers, and these unattended parcels prove irresistible to thieves, who need to do nothing more than walk away with them when no one’s looking.

The most obvious way to prevent this is not to have packages delivered to your home in the first place, and have them delivered to your workplace or a post office box instead. However, not everyone has these options.

“Companies don't want the mail room logistical issues or potential liability issues that come from handling employees' personal packages,” NCR Corp. Public Relations Manager Mark Scott said in an e-mail. However, he said that some companies offer options for their customers who can’t get packages at work and don’t want to rent a post office box, but don’t want to risk having them stolen off of their porches either.

“One thing many retailers are now implementing is order-online/pick-up in-store,” he said. “Customers can go to the retailer's web site, order a product and select an option of having it available at a nearby store.”

One online retailer that helps its customers negotiate this potential theft problem is the e-commerce giant Amazon.com. It has introduced Amazon Locker, a service that allows products ordered through the website to be delivered to secure locations, such as participating 7-11 stores.

Customers choosing this option choose a location by address, zip code or nearby landmark during the checkout process. When the package is delivered, the customer receives a pick-up code by e-mail or text message, which he or she uses to open the locked compartment where the package has been delivered.

There are limitations to what can be delivered via this option. Package dimensions cannot exceed 11.8 x 11.8 x 11.8 inches, and its weight cannot exceed 10 pounds, so that flat-screen TV with 5.1 surround-sound speakers and separate subwoofer is sadly ineligible. However, the service is ideal for the delivery of phones, mp3 players, cameras and other products that represent an expensive loss when stolen.

There are also the tried and true methods of package security that have worked for decades prior to the invention of e-commerce, such as making arrangements with a neighbor to accept packages for you. You can also ask the U.S. Postal Service to hold your mail if you anticipate being away while a package is being delivered.

Finally, if you don’t receive a package that you were expecting, it may not be that it was stolen from in front of your house—you may be the victim of mail fraud. The U.S. Postal Inspection Service recommends that you first contact the shipper to make sure the items were sent correctly. If they were, it is recommended that you immediately file a complaint with the U.S. Postal Inspection Service.

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Maybe you were too much of a traditionalist to shop on Thanksgiving, and perhaps you opted to sleep in rather than brave the crowds on Black Friday.

But now it's Cyber Monday - the day when many online retailers are offering big holiday promotions - and you are finding yourself drawn by the siren call of shopping.

There are plenty of cyber shopping deals out there, on Monday and further into the week, but it pays to make sure you are getting a good one.

WalletPop has five tips for getting a deal on Cyber Monday. Among them: Compare prices to make sure another website isn’t going to give you an even better price, use coupon sites and read up on reviews to make sure you are getting the best quality product for the price.

Readers, are you shopping on Cyber Monday? Click here to vote and discuss.