The 2011 online holiday shopping season had a strong start, with record Cyber Monday sales of $1.251 billion and a significant jump over last year. Depending on whose numbers you believe, this year’s Cyber Monday sales numbers were anywhere from 15% to 33% higher than in 2010. Department stores and home goods retailers saw the highest sales volumes; department stores had a 60% increase over last year, while home goods retailers saw a 68% increase.

Additionally, the average order rose 2.6 percent over last year to $193.24. A record number of purchases were made on mobile devices, with nearly three times as many online shoppers purchasing via smartphone — 6.6% of shoppers used a mobile device compared to just 2.3% in 2010.  Reports also showed that 7.37% of sales were made on mobile devices as compared to 2.25% in 2010.

Now a couple weeks into the holiday shopping season, the higher sales numbers continue and point to a much healthier season this year than in recent years. With the recession seemingly over, consumers are in more of a spending mood. In fact, one study says that holiday shoppers will spend a little extra this year on gifts for themselves – 36% of consumers compared to 29% last year, and they’ll spend 16% more on items for themselves.

With the proliferation of mobile devices, and consumers’ comfort with shopping from their home PCs, it seems clear that online and mobile sales will continue to capture a greater proportion of overall retail sales. And while free shipping promotions and other special offers will certainly have an impact on where people buy, e-retail sites designed with ease of use and a streamlined search and navigation experience should also fare well as consumers open their wallets.

Since our last year in review, the march toward mobile has continued to revolutionize the way we look at site search and navigation. Of course, the spread of mobile devices, and consumers’ interest in browsing websites from wherever they happen to be, drove the other big trend in site search and navigation this year: continued focus on improving usability and streamlining the online shopping experience.

Site owners are constantly on the hunt for new ways to improve searching and browsing for products and content, in a bid to move the needle on conversions. This past year, we saw sites working harder to include social media content, such as Facebook posts and tweets, in search; adding related searches and “most recently searched” lists to their sites, making it easier for visitors to find relevant content and products; and integrating the online and offline shopping experience. For instance, multi-channel retailers have been getting smart about showing “where to buy” information in search results, so that site visitors can find products in stock nearby.

Here are other stories that made news in 2011:

As Holidays Approach, Fine-Tune Navigation for Conversion Boost: September 2011

From Multichannel Merchant: How to optimize navigation before the holiday rush begins.

Motorcycle Superstore’s site search drives up its conversion rates: July 2011

From Internet Retailer: how the motorcycle retailer uncovers keyword search terms.

B2B E-commerce: Revamped online branding and cross-linked site search drives 17% of B2B revenue: July 2011

From MarketingSherpa: how U.S. Toy Company solved online branding issues by cross-linking site searches.

5 Must-Have Features For Today’s Online Retail: March 2011

From Retail Touchpoints: meeting the needs of site visitors via site search.

These articles from our own newsletter “Telescope” proved popular with readers over the past year:

5 Quick Ideas for Holiday Merchandising in Search and Navigation

Even incremental changes to site search and navigation can encourage customers to spend more time on your site, which means greater potential for conversions.

Check out these last-minute merchandising ideas.

Use Site Search Data to Capture a Nice Conversion Lift from Search Engine Traffic

Here’s how to create a tailored product banner for people who land on your product pages from search engines.

Click here for more on search data banners.

The Must-Have Online Commerce Features for 2011 – and Beyond

How to make site search even better – for instance, by bringing ratings and reviews into site search.

Read more about “must-have” features for site search.

Here’s what our blog readers found most interesting in 2011:

Different prices in different countries: Adidas All Black jersey mess up

The “scandal” over New Zealand rugby jersey pricing – and why online retailers need to closely manage international pricing.

Find out more about global pricing issues.

4 Stages of a Great Shopping Experience

Guest blogger Steve Warren from Fifth Gear explains how to impress customers during every stage of the retail transaction.

Learn more about improving the quality of the transaction experience.

Top 10 2011 MCM Awards Puts Spotlight on Great Site Search & Navigation

The top 10 retail sites with the best search and navigation, according to Multichannel Merchant.

Read more about the winners.

Out of this year’s lineup of guests for our regular Ecommerce Podcast, here are the most popular interviews from the past year:

Tim Parry

Senior writer at Multichannel Merchant

Steve Groenier

Former VP of sales and marketing at Artbeads.com

Matt Konkle

President of Fifth Gear

And finally, here are the most viewed among our “Site Search Video Tips” for the past 12 months:

Rich Auto Complete

How Rich Auto Complete improves the site search experience.

How to Get the Most from Site Search

Creating a user-friendly site search box.

Open Search

How Open Search allows your site visitors to search your site search from their browser’s search box.

Search Suggestions

The benefits of search suggestions for search, navigation, and product pages.

In 2012, we look forward to bringing you more useful tips and strategies on everything from merchandising products to weaving social media into the shopping experience. In next month’s newsletter, we’ll offer up our 2012 predictions for search and navigation trends, and how they’ll impact your business.

While 2011 could be called the year of mobile, 2012 will likely be the year of the tablet. As retailers begin to understand how people search, shop, and consume content on mobile devices, the soaring popularity of the iPad (one of the must-have items on people’s holiday wish lists this year), presents new challenges for retailers, as well as for those of us who provide products and services to them, in delivering a compelling shopping experience on the new “fourth screen.” This is driven not only by the number of iPads but also by the higher conversion rates of people that use iPads; iPad users buy more. Improving the experience for this growing and desirable demographic is an opportunity worth focusing on next year.

For tablets like the iPad and its Andriod Counterparts, the requirements for creating user-friendly search and navigation experiences are different than those for the mobile screen. There is more screen real estate to work with when it comes to tablets, which means a better display of product images and an easier-to-use touchscreen. On the other hand, “t-commerce” or “couch-commerce” will require a different experience than what is displayed on a personal computer or mobile screen. Site owners (and companies like ours) need to brainstorm ways to take advantage of the benefits of tablets (like brilliant displays of photos and videos), while keeping navigation streamlined.

For instance, tapping the screen is the standard method of navigation for tablets. Your fingers are relatively large and imprecise when compared to the control you have with a mouse.  For example small text menus, which you might find in lists of refinements – are hard to tap on without hitting another menu item by mistake. The same goes for buttons that are too close together, or pagination numbers: easy to click on with a mouse, tough to click on with a finger. In addition, as GetElastic reports, tablets are making it possible for website visitors to interact with content in new ways: people can “touch” content, swiping and zooming to choose how they view text and images. This tactile interaction may cause us to discover new ways to present information, new ways to display navigation, and new possibilities for innovative merchandising and SEO.

As many tablet (and mobile device) users spend lots of time on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and now Google +, we can expect that the merging of e-commerce and social media will gain even more prominence in the months ahead. It’s recently been reported that half of all visitors to ecommerce sites are logged on to Facebook.  As we’ve discussed before in this blog (or the SLI Blog), site owners have realized that if people are spending more and more time with their friends on social networks, the website search and shopping experience needs to come to the social setting. It’s a constantly evolving situation and the best practices for optimizing social media and retailing are still being tuned. In 2012 we’ll see more retailers experimenting with social media and further refining these best practices.