ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST: Retailers and their Internet providers spent the past year making sure they were ready for lots of web traffic today. It is Cyber Monday, the traditional day for online shopping deals.</s>PHILIP BURROUGHS: We're seeing a really good customer experience in terms of the way the sites are moving from a speed point of view, the way that availability is representing itself. So, you know, that's a very, very positive thing.</s>ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST: That's Phil Burroughs, vice president of retail and hospitality for Verizon Enterprise Solutions. Verizon provides service to dozens of the nation's top retailers. And Burroughs says by midday today...</s>PHILIP BURROUGHS: We're seeing a, I'd say on average about a 35 percent increase in terms of both traffic and order volume, this Cyber Monday versus last Cyber Monday.</s>ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST: Comscore, an industry research firm, predicts that overall retailers will do $2 billion in online sales today. And that would be a new record.</s>ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST: Ezra Palmer is vice president at the research firm eMarketer. He says more than ever consumers are using phones and tablets to shop.</s>EZRA PALMER: About 15 percent of all e-commerce will be mobile commerce for the holiday this season.</s>ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST: And Palmer says the big uptick in online shopping began last week.</s>EZRA PALMER: Consumers now can shop from any device anywhere. Half of all mobile phone users have smartphones. There's a fair amount of cyber shopping going on at the Thanksgiving table these days.</s>ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST: And Phil Burroughs at Verizon confirms that.</s>PHILIP BURROUGHS: If I were to show you a traffic diagram, you would see a huge spike around 4 p.m. Eastern Time. You know, so we talk about the post-turkey blitz.
It is Cyber Monday, the day that's become known for internet shopping deals. Online retailers are expected to set new records. Robert Siegel shares some of what's known about how things are going so far.