By BLOOMBERG

SEATTLE • The holiday shopping season is off to a strong start and retailers hoped to continue the momentum yesterday — Cyber Monday — the biggest online spending day of the year.

Amazon.com Inc and Wal-Mart Stores Inc are vying for holiday spending with competing deals on flat-screen televisions, toys and gadgets.

Traditional retailers Macy’s Inc, Sears Holdings Corp and JC Penney Co have all shuttered stores, creating an opportunity for retailers to fill the void online, said Tom Forte, analyst at DA Davidson & Co.

E-commerce spending would jump almost 17% from a year ago to US$6.6 billion (RM27.13 billion) on Cyber Monday, according to estimates from Adobe Systems Inc. Shoppers continue to ditch the hassle of crowded stores and malls for the convenience of shopping online.

Online spending during the November-December holiday season in the US is projected to reach about US$107 billion this year, more than 11% of total holiday retail sales — the largest portion ever, according to EMarketer Inc.

Amazon, the world’s biggest online retailer, is projected to capture half of the e-commerce holiday spending growth, according to Bain & Co. GBH Insights estimated last Friday that Amazon had captured as much as 50% of all online Black Friday sales.

Cyber Monday became a phenomenon when e-commerce was in its infancy and most people had slow, dial-up Internet connections at home.