Online spending reached a record $1.25 billion on Cyber Monday 2011, with an estimated 22 percent growth year over year, according to ComScore. Much of the gain can be attributed to the increase in customers using mobile devices for holiday shopping. IBM reported that mobile traffic to ecommerce sites rose from 3.9 percent of all traffic on Cyber Monday 2010 to 10.8 percent in 2011, with sales increasing from 2.3 to 6.6 percent. In addition, PayPal Mobile reported a 552 percent year over year spike.

Total retail traffic was driven 4.1 percent by iPhones, 3.3 percent by iPads, and 3.2 by Android phones, IBM noted. "Right now, it looks like 35 percent of all mobile sales are going through the iPad," said John Squire, chief strategy officer for IBM's Smarter Commerce Marketing. "Sales on the iPad are growing at a faster rate than online sales as a whole, and faster than other mobile devices."

In addition, a report by Wakefield Research and Motricity noted that 70 percent of shoppers who bought from their mobile devices made more purchases in 2011 than in 2010, with smartphone owners between 25 and 44 nearly twice as likely to believe that shopping from their mobile device was more convenient than those aged 18 to 24.