They started out slow, but Cyber Monday shoppers upped their spending by 8% this year, good economic news for retailers and good news for our consumer-based economy.

There was a pattern shift, however, among online shoppers. Instead of making most of their purchases during the lunch hour, the bulk of the buying was done early in the morning and in the evening.

This probably means more folks were shopping from home and not from work.

Why’s this? For one thing, there are more unemployed folks out there this year. And those who do have jobs may be less likely to do personal online activities at work for fear of jeopardizing their standing with employers. But widely available broadband access could also have something to do with the trend.

“More families have high-speed internet access at home and don’t need to rely on their work computers to make holiday purchases, which makes the early morning and evening hours crucial for retail sales,” said Scott Silverman, Executive Director of Shop.org.

Cyber Monday is a term created by Shop.org in 2005, after retailers noticed a trend of people shopping online on the Monday after Thanksgiving. (They assumed that folks waited until they got to their offices where high speed Internet access made shopping faster and easier.)

Today, Cyber Monday is viewed as the ceremonial kickoff to the online holiday shopping season, when shoppers flood Web sites expecting robust promotions and many retailers highlight some of their most compelling holiday offers.

Tags: cyber Monday, online, shop.org, shopping, spending