The Grinch of a rotten economy isn't likely to stop the growth of cyber-retail this year.

That's the near-unanimous word from a number of executives and analysts who follow e-commerce.

Most Black Friday data were anecdotal by midday Friday, but Thanksgiving got the ball rolling. The number of e-commerce payments in the U.S. handled by eBay (NasdaqGS:EBAY - News)-owned PayPal, the Web's top online payment service, jumped 25% Thursday vs. Thanksgiving 2008, the company says.

In the downturn, consumers are willing to forego some holiday time with family and friends in order to find bargains that might not be around all season, says PayPal spokeswoman Amanda Pires.

"People are looking for deals online," she said. "Retailers got out early with their promotions and word has gotten out (to consumers) that inventories are low."

PriceGrabber.com, one of the largest comparison-shopping sites, says its consumer referrals in November, through midday Friday, were up 10% to 15% from the year-earlier period.

Yet, these aren't boom times. The bad news is that more consumers are opting for lower-priced items like GPS systems and video game consoles as opposed to $1,000 high-definition TV sets, says Graham Jones, vice president of merchant accounts for PriceGrabber.

Shoebuy.com, a unit of IAC/InterActiveCorp (NasdaqGS:IACI - News), expected to attract 700,000 combined visitors on Black Friday and on Monday -- so-called Cyber Monday -- compared with a total of about 600,000 for those two days last year.

Cyber Monday is the term given to the first major workday after Thanksgiving. It's typically one of the busiest five or six online shopping days of the year.

"We saw healthy traffic and buying on Thanksgiving and Wednesday, and we didn't see any letup today," Shoebuy CEO Scott Savitz said late Friday.

U.S. online sales Nov. 1 through Nov. 22 rose 2% from the year-earlier period to $8.21 billion, says market tracker comScore. The firm forecasts U.S. e-commerce sales will rise 3% this year in November and December. That's way down from most years, but up from a 3% decline in last year's holiday season.

Some aggressive retailers such as Amazon.com (NasdaqGS:AMZN - News) and Sears Holdings (NasdaqGS:SHLD - News) launched "Black Friday" specials earlier in the month, before the actual day, which sparked sales, says Fiona Dias, executive vice president of strategy and marketing for GSI Commerce (NasdaqGS:GSIC - News), an e-commerce and interactive marketing services company.

"Black Friday has become an adjective that people are using to connote great specials and everyone started early," Dias said.

Consumers seem to be responding to the early Black Friday promotions, says Ed Foy, chief executive of eFashion Solutions, an e-commerce services company that powers sites for such apparel companies as DKNY.

"Over the weekend (Nov. 21-22), we saw sales pick up pretty dramatically," he said.

Some online sellers have discounted heavily already this holiday season, while others are offering incentives such as free shipping.

Retailers including Calvin Klein have used one-day discounts of 30% to 50% to push select online sales.

Visitor traffic and sales at online retailer Zappos.com are up so far in November vs. a year ago, says Aaron Magness, director of brand marketing and business development for the unit of Amazon.com. Zappos sells shoes and more.

But shoppers, steeled by the long economic downturn, are more finicky, Magness says.

"In e-commerce, people are probably spending more time shopping before they actually purchase, whether it's checking on pricing or taking longer to make sure that they are buying items that they want," he said.

Still, consumers are buying, and they're not alone.

Visitor traffic to Liquidation.com, a unit of Liquidity Services (NasdaqGS:LQDT - News), is up 35% in November vs. a year ago, a company executive said Friday. It sells liquidation items, mostly to small businesses, via online auctions.

"By Tuesday we're going to be closing about 50% more auctions a day than we did last year," said Rob Caskey, vice president of marketing for Liquidity Services.