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NEW YORK (AP) -- Shoppers crowded the Internet as well as store aisles during the Thanksgiving weekend. Typically, the online holiday season officially starts on the subsequent Monday, when many people start shopping from the workplace computer. But this year, many online retailers, including and, which sells designer clothing at big discounts, saw sales take off on Thanksgiving Day itself. That shows how consumers are increasingly using the Internet as an information tool - scouring for deals and then purchasing as much as they can online before heading to the malls for those early bird specials and other deals on Friday. The change in shopping patterns also reflect how millions of homes have converted to high-speed Internet connections, making it easier to shop from home, analysts said. In fact, for the first time, Sears, Roebuck and Co. gave online customers early access to Friday's specials, allowing them to order on the Web on Thanksgiving Day - and then pick up the merchandise in the stores over the weekend. That strategy seemed to work; sales on Thanksgiving were three times what they were a year ago. 'They're home and they're getting ready for Friday,' sales, said Greg Ahearn, vice president of marketing for, which offered special deals on toys on Thanksgiving day., a comparison shopping site that also tracks sales at 2,000 e-commerce sites, reported that sales increased 30 percent on Thanksgiving day to $197 million, compared with $151 million a year ago. 'Thursday was strong. Broadband is definitely having an effect,' said Chuck Davis, CEO of. 'Online shopping has also become more mainstream.' For the four-day weekend ended Sunday, reported that sales for the 2,000 sites it tracks totaled $820 million, compared with $735 million during the year-ago period. According to, Monday remained the busiest day of the holiday weekend, reaching $256 million, u
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