Record Cyber Monday spending tops $3 billion

NEW YORK (AP) — Shoppers spent more than $3 billion online this "Cyber Monday," making it the biggest online shopping day ever.

Research firm comScore said shopping by phone, laptop or tablet jumped 21 percent to $3.11 billion Monday.

The 10-year-old shopping holiday has lost some of its luster as retailers push sales forward on the calendar to Thanksgiving and Black Friday. Yet "Cyber Monday" has become engrained in the minds of enough shoppers and it endures as the top online spending day of the year.

"Despite some talk of Cyber Monday declining in importance, the day's historical highs and continued strong growth rates confirm it is still a hugely important shopping event," said comScore chairman emeritus Gian Fulgoni.

It's the sixth year in a row that Cyber Monday has been the top online sales day on record. Mobile spending, or sales via smartphones and tablets, jumped 53 percent to $838 million, making up 27 percent of total online spending. Top online shopping destinations included Amazon, Walmart, eBay, Target and Best Buy.

The spending spree comes even as several retailers had problems during Cyber Monday. Amazon said some orders in the U.S. and Canada had incorrectly applied shipping charges, but it discovered the error and refunded the charges. Target's website was briefly offline due to high traffic.