Although the season kicked off with a bang, there were fears that consumer confidence would fall as the end of the year approached. That did not happen, with people continuing to fill their virtual shopping carts until the very last minute; 10 individual days surpassed $1 billion in spending.

According to comScore, the final tally for online spending for the months of November and December was $37.2 billion, representing a 15 percent increase over last year.

ComScore tracks purchases made on Web sites from a fixed Internet connection, excluding spending done via mobile phones and tablets, so presumably the numbers could be higher.

While the numbers being reported sound positive, some analysts worry if they were enough to give giants like Amazon the growth rates needed to hit expectations. Wall Street analysts are expecting Amazon to post a fourth-quarter growth rate of 38 percent, which would mean it would have to be growing twice as fast as the average market.

But Chase Paymentech’s annual Cyber Holiday Pulse Index painted a rosier picture of the holiday season. Based on tracking 50 of the leading online merchants in the U.S., the report found that during the final two months of the year, transactions were up 37 percent and sales rose 25 percent.

One of the reasons for the huge gains, it said, was because Christmas fell on a Sunday this year, allowing merchants to guarantee shipping much later into the week and giving consumers more time to make online transactions.

To be sure, the increase in online shopping is coming from somewhere — most likely at the expense of traditional retail, which is expected to report a less impressive 4 percent growth rate this year.

“It’s clear that e-commerce continues to gain market share from traditional retail due to the attractiveness of the Internet’s convenience and lower prices,” said comScore Chairman Gian Fulgoni. “Consumers were especially attracted to the deals and discounts available through digital channels -– particularly free shipping, which occurred on well over half of transactions this season.”

The most impressive finding of the season was that 10 individual days surpassed $1 billion in spending, compared to only one day in 2010.

Here is a list of the 10 biggest online shopping days in 2011, led by Cyber Monday:

(Image credit: iStockphoto.com/mbortolino)

Either way, consumers barely waited until Santa got back to the North Pole before hitting up the stores again.

ComScore reports that e-commerce spending for the first 48 days of the holiday season — ended Dec. 19 — reached $32 billion, jumping 15 percent over last year. In one week alone, at least four individual days surpassed the $1 billion mark.

And IBM, which analyzes mobile shopping trends using data from 500 retailers nationwide, said shoppers continued pulling out their credit cards on Christmas Day, as they shopped for themselves after shopping for others.

IBM found that on Dec. 25, online sales grew by 16.4 percent over Christmas Day 2010. (IBM’s results do not include Amazon.com, the Internet’s largest e-tailer.)

Many of the online sessions on a retailer’s site were initiated from a mobile device, accounting for 18.3 percent of traffic, up from 8.4 percent last year. Mobile sales grew to 14.4 percent versus 5.3 percent on Christmas last year.

As stated in a report that came out earlier this week, most mobile shopping was conducted on iOS devices. The iPad led all mobile-device traffic at 7 percent, followed by iPhone at 6.4 percent and Android at 5 percent, according to IBM.

Many of the days surrounding the holidays have acquired quirky nicknames, such as Cyber Monday (the Monday after Thanksgiving), Black Friday (the day after Thanksgiving) and Green Monday (the second Monday of December).

Perhaps this Christmas will qualify as Sofa Sunday.

The term was first introduced to me by Joaquin Ruiz, the co-founder and CEO of Padopolis, which makes a catalog app for the iPad. He was hoping the Sunday after Thanksgiving would see a spike in traffic after everyone hit the mall on Black Friday and then curled up on the couch with their iPad the following Sunday to recover.

This year, Christmas Sunday’s shopping spike continued into Monday, also known as Boxing Day. IBM said that online sales were up 10 percent by midday on Monday, over Dec. 26 last year, and that mobile sales were up 13.8 percent.

(Image courtesy of iStockphoto | mattjeacock)

With only 13 days until Christmas, today has historically ranked as one of the heaviest online shopping days of the year, thereby earning the nickname “Green Monday.”

This year it’s almost a guarantee that history will repeat itself.

Already, six individual days have surpassed the billion-dollar threshold this holiday season, according to comScore. That’s up from last year, when only one day eclipsed $1 billion in spending.

The term Green Monday was coined by eBay in 2007 to describe the second Monday of December because it tended to attract shoppers who wanted to make sure their presents would arrive in time. And, well, because the color of money is green.

This year, a number of online retailers are banking on it by offering a number of holiday specials.

But one of the biggest benefactors of all is FedEx, which must ship all the orders.

The commercial postal service is predicting that today will be the busiest day in its nearly 40-year history. The company is forecasting that it will ship more than 17 million orders today, double its daily average volume, and will exceed last year’s busiest day of 15.6 million shipments.

FedEx might be one of the first indicators to reveal how well the online shopping is fairing.

It says the increase is largely driven by residential shipments sent from online and catalog retailers. ComScore’s data would agree with that hypothesis. Already, the research firm says that online shopping is up roughly 15 percent from Nov. 1 to Dec. 9, compared to the same period in 2010.

ComScore Chairman Gian Fulgoni said, “We know that Green Monday will rank among the top online spending days of the season.”

But he added that it will likely not be the last hurrah of the year.

Other important days to come include the promotional day coined “Free Shipping Day,” which occurs on Dec. 16, and other days this week as we near the end of the year.

One retailer, however, was not in the holiday spirit.

Amazon-owned Zappos put out a press release today calling itself the Anti-Green Monday. It said shoppers don’t have to get caught up in the hype because it is guaranteeing that all orders made on Dec. 22 will receive next-day delivery for Dec. 23.

Now that’s the true definition of a procrastinator.

Here is comScore’s list of the 10 biggest shopping days of 2011:

The retail industry coined the phrase “Cyber Monday” to represent the Monday immediately following Black Friday (the day after Thanksgiving). Presumably everyone was returning to work and continuing their shopping online.

However, the term ended up a misnomer because there was always a day closer to Christmas that exceeded it in sales, as procrastinators waited until the last minute to shop online.

Well, that may change this year, says comScore, which measures such stuff.

“At this late juncture in the online holiday season, we have likely already witnessed the peak spending day of the year, which means that Cyber Monday should emerge as the season’s heaviest online spending day for the first time in history,” said comScore chairman Gian Fulgoni in a release.

That’s not to say other days didn’t come close.

Overall, online spending this year is up 12 percent, when looking at the 47 days between Nov. 1 and Dec. 17, and this past week’s numbers were even higher. Online shopping reached $5.15 billion in the week ended Dec. 17, jumping 14 percent compared to the same period a year ago.

Both Monday and Friday were abnormally strong, coming in at $943 million and $942 million, respectively.

But for the first time ever, neither of those day was able to outperform Cyber Monday, which hit an all-time record of $1.03 billion.

Historically, two days in the past week have particularly stood out. Monday is named “Green Monday” after the color of money, and Friday is called “Free Shipping Day,” because a number of physical and e-commerce retailers teamed up to promote online shopping by giving away free postage for a 24-hour period. Monday was up 12 percent over last year, and Friday was up 61 percent.

Based on historical patterns, comScore had reasoned that one or more days would exceed $1 billion in the past week. Now with Christmas six days away, it’s likely too late to see that kind of volume again. Although Amazon’s cutoff for fee shipping ends tonight, and Wal-Mart’s free shipping (with guaranteed arrival by Dec. 24) ends tomorrow night, and department stores like Macy’s is offering free shipping until Monday for items $99 or more.

In all, the shopping season to date stands at $27.46 billion.

Happy holidays, indeed.

In the first 40 days of the holiday shopping season, comScore estimates that more than $21.95 billion has been spent online, increasing 12 percent vs. last year.

The most recent week saw a spike in sales with $5.15 billion in spending, an increase of 11 percent over last year, as two days each pushed passed $900 million.

But still, it’s likely that the biggest shopping day online has yet to occur. The industry would like you to believe that its “Cyber Monday,” the Monday following Thanksgiving, is the busiest, and while spending hit an all-time record of $1.03 billion on that day this year, procrastinators typically spend more as we get closer to Christmas.

This Monday, Dec. 13, has been coined “Green Monday,” presumably after the color of money. EBay came up with the term after the second Monday in December 2007 kicked off one of the busiest shopping weeks online.

This year seems particularly robust, as shoppers become even more comfortable seeking discounts online. ComScore chairman Gian Fulgoni, surmised: “This coming week, beginning with Green Monday, should see some of the heaviest online shopping activity of the season and we expect at least one more day to surpass the billion dollar spending threshold.”

But the holiday shopping season will naturally slow down starting on Friday, Dec. 17, as free delivery offers expire and it becomes more difficult to get guaranteed delivery by Christmas Eve. Until then, the post office can assume its sleighs will be packed full of cardboard boxes.

Amazon.com is offering free shipping on purchases of $25 or more until Friday, unless you have an Amazon prime subscription. Wal-Mart is offering free shipping–with no minimum–on 60,000 items until Dec. 20. And, Dec. 17 has been coined Free Shipping Day with lots of merchants trying to get shoppers to do last-minute spending online without the penalty of shipping costs.

The market-research firm said that shoppers spent $4.64 billion online last week, up 4 percent, with Thursday, Dec. 10 spending reaching $852 million (the third-strongest day of the season to date, following Cyber Monday’s $887 million and the following day’s $886 million).

ComScore said it is likely to see the heaviest spending this season today, also known as Green Monday, as Internet users scramble to get purchases delivered by Christmas. What analysts hope for is a day in which e-commerce reaches $900 million, which would be a record sum, and Green Monday represents the day most likely to achieve it.

This year’s holiday-spending prospects are strong, Lazard Capital Markets said. It hosted a Friday call with e-commerce firm Channel Intelligence, which said it expects growth rates to remain positive after a promising Black Friday start.

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And that’s exactly what consumers are looking for, according to Google (GOOG).

“We’ve seen quite an increase in queries for things like discounts and bargains and things like that,” Google CEO Eric Schmidt told “Meet The Press” this past weekend. “And we know that shoppers are using the Internet to get better pricing.”

Black Friday. Cyber Monday. Mobile Tuesday.

What’s next, Debt Consolidation Loan Wednesday? 401(k) Withdrawal Thursday? Pavlov’s Dog Friday?

Try Green Monday. Turns out, the Monday two weeks before Christmas is also a shopping holiday, one apparently held in celebration of the seasonal deadline for free shipping. “This is the last minute [to ship]” said eBay (EBAY) executive Jim Griffith. “It’s do or die.”

Although, given the current economic climate, it’s “do less.” Because according to Chase Paymentech’s Cyber Holiday Pulse Index, the average dollar amount of purchases made on Cyber Monday this year was down 12 percent from last year (click on the charts below). Though there are 14 percent more total transactions this year over last, the typical shopper spent $7.19 less per transaction. “Cyber Monday was very interesting,” said Aaron Press, Director of Market Analysis for Chase Paymentech. “Transaction volume was well ahead of last year for that day, but sales growth was meager. For the entire holiday season, the slower rise in sales volume compared to the steeper increase in transactions has resulted in the average ticket being lower on most days.”

Black Friday. Cyber Monday. Mobile Tuesday.

What’s next, Debt Consolidation Loan Wednesday? 401(k) Withdrawal Thursday? Pavlov’s Dog Friday?

Try Green Monday. Turns out, the Monday two weeks before Christmas is also a shopping holiday, one apparently held in celebration of the seasonal deadline for free shipping. “This is the last minute [to ship]” said eBay (EBAY) executive Jim Griffith. “It’s do or die.”

Although, given the current economic climate, it’s “do less.” Because according to Chase Paymentech’s Cyber Holiday Pulse Index, the average dollar amount of purchases made on Cyber Monday this year was down 12 percent from last year (click on the charts below). Though there are 14 percent more total transactions this year over last, the typical shopper spent $7.19 less per transaction. “Cyber Monday was very interesting,” said Aaron Press, Director of Market Analysis for Chase Paymentech. “Transaction volume was well ahead of last year for that day, but sales growth was meager. For the entire holiday season, the slower rise in sales volume compared to the steeper increase in transactions has resulted in the average ticket being lower on most days.”