eBay released data on how certain popular items fared on eBay.com on "Black Friday," traditionally one of the busiest retail shopping days in the U.S. eBay said 2,537 TMX Elmo dolls sold for an average price of $70.10 each, and 73 Furreal Butterscotch Pony toys sold for an average price of $350.48 each. Four Samsung BDP1000 Blu-Ray DVD players sold for an average price of $552.75 each, and eBay sellers sold 1,910 pairs of socks on Black Friday for an average price of $10.80 each. The data was provided by eBay Marketplace Research.

eBay's comparison shopping site Shopping.com reported that referrals to retailers on its site as of Black Friday had increased by 40 percent over the same period last year. The highest growth came in more traditional offline retail categories such as kids and family, home and garden and clothing and accessories.

Despite the high increase in merchant referral traffic, Shopping.com said it doesn't expect Black Friday to be its busiest day. The Black Friday equivalent for online shopping is Cyber Monday, the Monday after Thanksgiving. Last holiday, Shopping.com received its highest number of visitors on Cyber Monday, with most visitors coming to the site between noon and 2 p.m. Pacific. However, Shopping.com saw the most sustained activity on its site for the season on Monday, December 12, 2005, indicating that more consumers tend to browse earlier in the season, but make most of their purchases later on.

eBay led the top online shopping destinations on Black Friday this year with 7.5 million unique visitors, according to Nielsen//NetRatings, followed by Amazon and Wal-Mart Stores with 3.4 million and 3.2 million unique visitors, respectively (http://www.nielsen-netratings.com).

Nielsen//NetRatings announced that its Holiday eShopping Index increased 12 percent (from home only) on the day after Thanksgiving, garnering a unique audience of 19.2 million across more than 120 representative online retailers, compared with 17.2 million on Black Friday last year.

However, Reuters points out that is significantly below the 29 percent growth in overall traffic to the index from 2004 to 2005 and more in line with 11 percent growth seen from 2003 to 2004. (http://digbig.com/4pkqa).