Now in its sixth year, the Chase Paymentech Cyber Holiday Pulse Index tracks millions of daily payment transactions throughout the holiday season. Taken from a sample of 50 of the top 500 U.S. online retailers, as ranked by Internet Retailer magazine, the Pulse Index data reflects near real-time merchant processing activity. As a market leader in e-commerce processing, Chase Paymentech is uniquely able to provide this information to the marketplace. The Pulse Index data is updated every business day throughout the holiday period from November 4, 2011 through January 6, 2012, with insights, analysis and commentary provided weekly.

Because it analyzes the actual payment activity, the Pulse Index is a valuable tool for spotting several key online shopping trends. For example, the Index has demonstrated a trend toward smaller average ticket values over the past few years. Though it's clear that the economic recession drove this trend for a couple of seasons, last year's data was able to link smaller tickets to the growing demand for digital media, such as music downloads – and more recently – ebooks.

E-commerce continues to grow in importance as a retail channel and its significance during the holiday shopping season has strengthened each year. The Pulse Index tracks this trend beginning early November, through Black Friday and Cyber Monday, and throughout the holiday shopping season. With increasing merchant promotional activity, the expanded markets for digital commerce and the added potential of mobile shopping, 2011 promises to be one of the most exciting online holiday shopping seasons yet.

In recent years, Pulse has shown that consumers are not waiting for Black Friday and are instead taking advantage of early online deals. Multi-channel merchants in particular have seen online consumers take advantage of their many attractive holiday promotions. Despite the growth in online spend on Black Friday, Cyber Monday is consistently the single largest day for e-commerce.

With Black Friday and Cyber Monday now behind us, the Pulse Index shows that online sales for the Black Friday weekend grew at an impressive 24 percent over 2010. Data also indicated that Cyber Monday was still the busiest e-commerce day of the season so far, with Pulse merchant transaction and sales volume reaching record levels. For the full holiday season to date, which began the first week of November, transactions are up 40 percent and sales are up 26 percent year over year. The average ticket values remain down, falling around 9 percent from last year.

Mike Duffy, president of Chase Paymentech, said, "Cyber Monday has historically been the biggest single day of the season; and so far that's true again. In addition, e-commerce is now an established part of the Black Friday phenomenon as consumers take advantage of online shopping deals, as well as Black Friday in-store bargains."

These early results are encouraging for e-commerce merchants and we still have time remaining. As we move through the holidays, keep an eye on the Chase Paymentech Cyber Holiday Pulse Index here to see if the growth continues.