Cyber Monday 2013 the biggest online shopping day in history says IBM research, seeing a 20.6% increase in sales

Smartphones proved to be the device of choice for browsing, driving 19.7 per cent of all online traffic compared to tablets (11.5 per cent). However, when it came to making the sale, tablets drove 11.7 per cent of all online sales, more than double that of smartphones, which accounted for 5.5 per cent.

IBM also looked at the social influence around Cyber Monday. It found that on average, holiday shoppers referred from Facebook spent six per cent more per order than shoppers referred from Pinterest.

"We continue to see a dramatic movement of the new digitally savvy consumer as Cyber Monday once again proved to be the star of this holiday shopping season," explained Jay Henderson, strategy director, IBM Smarter Commerce.

He continued: "The mobile device has become the shopping companion of choice for consumers, driving record mobile sales with 55 per cent growth over last year."

In comparing Cyber Monday 2013 to Black Friday 2013, IBM found Cyber Monday online sales were up 31.5 per cent over Black Friday this year. However consumers spent five per cent more per order on Black Friday versus Cyber Monday.

Analysing the shopping cart conversion rate from the two major retail days, IBM found shoppers actually purchased the items they added to their online shopping carts at a 12.6 higher rate on Cyber Monday than Black Friday.