The National Retail Federation recently released a list of top holiday trends, based on its holiday retail forecast. Several of the organization's "Top Ten Holiday Trends for 2010" have important implications for merchants buying and selling online. First, the down economy is still weighing on shoppers. About 62 percent of shoppers overall expect to spend less, and they are looking for coupons and doing comparison shopping online. However, impulse buying will be up, along with jewelry, personal care, and apparel. Second, store location matters less because more shoppers are browsing online.

Third, those online shoppers are opening their wallets. "People who will shop online will spend 24.6 percent more than average adults ($858.49 for online shoppers vs. $688.87 for all adults). The group is also more likely to start shopping early (42.6 percent started shopping before Halloween) and make non-gift purchases for themselves (61.4 percent of online shoppers vs. 57.1 percent of adults)," according to the NRF.

Finally, mobile platforms are becoming more and more important for ecommerce. The NRF found that a quarter of smartphone users will use their phones to shop online. That number, not surprisingly, rises to 45 percent for 18 to 24-year-olds. Overall, the NRF projects retail holiday spending will be up 2.3 percent over 2009, to $447.1 billion. Kicking off that boost in sales, IBM is forecasting a strong "Cyber Monday," especially in the electronics categories. In December, the tech giant predicts sales of consumer electronics and appliances should hit $13.8 billion, a jump of four percent over the same month in 2009.