Cyber deals up on Cyber Monday

NEW YORK, Dec. 1 (UPI) -- Online shopping declined 4 percent for most of November, pushing retailers to offer more deals on Cyber Monday, a retail expert said.

"As shoppers focus on price this holiday season, online retailers will be extremely competitive to offer the very best deals," Scott Silverman, executive director of Shop.org told the Chicago Tribune Monday.

In the first 23 days of November, online retail fell by 4 percent to $8.2 billion, ComScore Inc. reported.

In response, 84 percent of retailers planned to have deals online Monday, up from 72 percent in 2007, the National Retail Federation said.

Of those with the ability to log online at work, more than half -- 56 percent – will do some shopping from work Monday, the federation said.

Meanwhile, Mercent said its online sales for the seven days preceding preceding Cyber Monday increased 25.6 percent over the same period last year.

The Mercent Shopping Network, a retail advertising network, allows consumers to compare selections on shopping engines such as Shopping.com, cart-based sites like Amazon and eBay and paid inclusion programs like Yahoo! Search Submit Pro, among others.