The 2006 holiday shopping period got off to a strong start over the weekend, according to several e-commerce operators.The Friday after Thanksgiving is typically seen as the start of the holiday sales season in the United States, and retail outlets across the nation see some of the largest crowds of the year on that day. In recent years, online retailers also reported strong traffic on the day.While consumers may be opening their wallets to online retailers like never before, there’s also evidence they are after bargains like never before. Two online price-comparison sites, which point consumers to the lowest prices for various items, reported surging traffic.Pricegrabber.com said it’s seen a 45 percent increase year over year in referrals to merchants for November to date. In some categories, including toys, sporting goods and apparel, the amount of traffic sent to retailers by Pricegrabber has more than doubled, it said. Rival site Shopping.com reported a 40 percent jump in November-to-date referrals to online retailers and said hot categories include kids and family, home and garden, and clothing and accessories.Despite the strong traffic, Monday is likely to be busier, said Shopping.com. Last year, visitors to the site peaked between noon and 2 p.m. on Monday. Two of the season’s hottest holiday gift items, the recently launched PlayStation 3 and Wii game consoles, have been selling fast on eBay. In the week ending Nov. 24, 14,675 PlayStation 3 and 26,708 Wii consoles were sold through the site. The average price of the PS3 was US$1,186.39 while the Wii fetched an average $412.53, according to eBay Marketplace Research. Both prices are well above their suggested retail prices.Other hot electronics items include the Samsung Electronics BDP-1000 Blu-ray Disc player and Apple Computer’s iPod nano and iPod Shuffle, the company said.-Martyn Williams, IDG News Service (Tokyo Bureau)Related Link: Ready for the Holiday Traffic?Check out our CIO News Alerts and Tech Informer pages for more updated news coverage. Related content feature Expedia poised to take flight with generative AI CTO Rathi Murthy sees the online travel service’s vast troves of data and AI expertise fueling a two-pronged transformation strategy aimed at growing the company by bringing more of the travel industry online. By Paula Rooney Jun 02, 2023 7 mins Travel and Hospitality Industry Digital Transformation Artificial Intelligence case study Deoleo doubles down on sustainability through digital transformation The Spanish multinational olive oil processing company is immersed in a digital transformation journey to achieve operational efficiency and contribute to the company's sustainability strategy. By Nuria Cordon Jun 02, 2023 6 mins CIO Supply Chain Digital Transformation brandpost Resilient data backup and recovery is critical to enterprise success As global data volumes rise, business must prioritize their resiliency strategies. By Neal Weinberg Jun 01, 2023 4 mins Security brandpost Democratizing HPC with multicloud to accelerate engineering innovations Cloud for HPC is facilitating broader access to high performance computing and accelerating innovations and opportunities for all types of organizations. By Tanya O'Hara Jun 01, 2023 6 mins Multi Cloud Podcasts Videos Resources Events SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER From our editors straight to your inbox Get started by entering your email address below. Please enter a valid email address Subscribe