![Cyber Monday Smashes Traffic Records [STATS]](https://helios-i.mashable.com/imagery/archives/07Ecykj85wuxIA1aCxjAwBI/hero-image.fill.size_1248x702.v1647018215.jpg)
We already know that the average online purchase was up by 35% and that overall online sales were up 11% from last year, so despite the bevy of deals today, there's been some speculation as to whether Cyber Monday would carry the same weight with consumers as in years past.
While there's still several more hours to go before the sun sets on Cyber Monday, Akamai is using its Net Usage Index to monitor North American visitors to 270 online retail sites, and according to CNN, data from earlier in the day already points to a 43% traffic jump when compared to last year at the same time.
At that time, those websites were attracting more than 4 million visitors per minute. As the graph above indicates, however, traffic peaked at 7,666,119 million visitors per minute. This peak is higher than the 6.69 million visitors per minute high on Black Friday, and it appears that the trend is still on the upswing. CNN also posits that "about 96.5 Americans plan to shop online Monday, up from 85 million in 2008, according to the National Retail Federation."