Beyond the predictions, however, there's information about holiday shopping based on hard data. The research comes from a joint effort by two young companies, LinkShare and BizRate.com.

LinkShare is an affiliate network for companies conducting business on the Web. It launched in 1996 and today has thousands of affiliate sites with more than 350 merchants, including 1-800 flowers, Borders.com, CBS Sportsline, Dell Commuter, and OfficeMax. Headquartered in New York City, it is still a privately held company, and is backed by Comcast (NASDAQ: CMCSK) and the Internet Capital Group (NASDAQ: ICGE).

BizRate.com is a research company headquartered in Los Angeles and works with 1700 online merchants to collect direct customer feedback and transactional information at the point of purchase. Acting as an impartial third party, BizRate evaluates e-commerce activity and merchant quality across the Web by soliciting information from millions of buyers each month as they are making online purchases. The company's reports are used by Consumer Reports Online, Consumer Reports Magazine, America Online, Microsoft Networks, Go Networks, and others.

The research, taken from a two-day Flash survey of nearly 5,900 shoppers, revealed that this holiday season e-shoppers intend to make about 35 per cent of their purchases online--almost three times last year's figure of 12 percent. About one third of these shoppers (37 percent) plan to make at least half of their entire holiday purchases over the Internet. On a dollar basis, the average for these online shopping household expenditures will be above $560 (U.S.).

The survey also revealed some interesting gender differences in shopping patterns:

• 63 percent of men said they shop online to save money.
• 75 percent of women said they buy online to avoid crowds and/or to save time by avoiding lines.
• More women than men (51 percent vs. 44 percent) are likely to be motivated by free shipping and handling with their purchases.
• More men than women (25 percent vs. 20 percent) are motivated by product discounts. This may be influenced by dedicated purchasing where specific product are sought by women; men tend to be less loyal to particular brands and are more easily swayed by price.

While the quarter has just begun, and traditional promotions have yet to start, many respondents to the above survey (21 percent) declared they will begin their holiday shopping in early October. More than a third (37 percent) of respondents said they are likely to begin their online holiday shopping before November. Almost all respondents plan to start buying by the time November rolls around. This augurs well for a real payoff for all the hard work and planning online merchants have done to prepare for this holiday season, according to Heidi Messer, LinkShare's president and co-founder.

Men and women also differ in the timing of their holiday shopping plans. Women are nearly twice as likely to have already stated holiday shopping online as are men. Men are more likely to wait until the last minute; 20 percent say they will start shopping in December.

Based on my personal experience, the tendency for men to wait until the last minute to shop may translate into increased spending.Last minute shopping inevitably costs more and is somewhat influenced by the guilt of waiting for the last moment. Very often this means buying a more expensive gift for the most special person(s) on the list. It might also mean the willing payment of a premium to instant delivery services such as Kozmo.com! So, from a personal point of view, the BizRate.com forecast, which pegs fourth quarter online retail sales to be $3.25 billion, might be a little higher.