Nov 29, 2005 6:02 AM

Millions of shoppers across the country may have camped out in front of retail stores on Black Friday in a bid to get first pick at the sales, but millions more sat at home and booted up the Net.

The number of online shoppers jumped 29% to 17.2 million unique audiences, compared to 13.3 million last year on Black Friday, according to Nielsen//NetRatings, an Internet media and market research company.

The company cited the high costs of gasoline for the jump as well as the growth of the Internet as a "vital component" in holiday shopping.

"Black Friday officially kicks off the holiday shopping season," said Heather Dougherty, senior retail analyst, Nielsen//NetRatings." And while many shoppers headed out to the stores over the weekend, the majority first turned to the Internet to check prices and product availability."

Ebay topped the list as the most visited site on Black Friday, with 9.5 million unique visitors. Amazon followed at 4.6 million, then Wal-Mart at 3.4 million. Target and Best Buy rounded out the top five online shopping destinations, attracting 2.9 million and 2.1 million unique audiences respectively. These same retailers led the top shopping destinations last year as well.

Toys and videos topped shopping lists and was the fastest growing retail category on Black Friday, with 152% week-over-week growth. Following was consumer electronics (142%) and computer hardware/software (102%).

"The toys and video games category experienced the largest increases in traffic fueled by the release of the Xbox 360 and the continued popularity of portable game consoles," Dougherty said. "The consumer electronics and computer hardware categories also attracted holiday shoppers to the Web to research and purchase this year's hottest gift items, including flat-screen TV's, iPods and other MP3 players. Price slashing and heavy demand will drive significant sales in these categories this holiday season."

Yesterday, Cyber Monday, was expected to drive additional growth for retailers who are offering plenty of online promotions such as free shipping and incentives.

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