With the leftover turkey packed away in the fridge and the dishes dried, Americans no longer can deny the arrival of the holiday shopping season.

Brick-and-mortar stores may have Black Friday the day after Thanksgiving, but online retailers are championing their official kickoff to the big spending period: Cyber Monday, which opens its virtual doors today.

Coupon codes, free shipping and Web-only deals keep shoppers like Melissa Fisher, a mortgage underwriter from Chicago, buying online instead of on-site. "I'd say 90 percent or more of my Christmas gifts will be bought online," she said. "It's just much easier when the online stores do all the work for you. Some even gift wrap."

Fisher and her fellow Internet-savvy shoppers are in luck this year. According to the National Retail Federation, 83.7 percent of Web retailers will offer a special promotion today. That's up from 72.2 percent in 2007. There's even a central Web site -- www.cybermonday.com -- that aggregates the day's promotional offers from retailers big and small.

Scott Krugman, vice president of the retail federation, emphasizes the importance of online shopping in light of the economic downturn this holiday season. "We are seeing retailers view their Web site not just as a sales channel, but as a critical marketing tool for driving consumers into their stores and creating an extension of their brand," he said in a media briefing call. "Even though we're seeing weakness in general retail, e-commerce is a tremendous bright spot."

In a survey released Tuesday, CareerBuilder.com, the jobs site partly owned by Tribune Co., reported that 29 percent of workers with Internet access will shop online from work this holiday season. The federation makes a much bigger prediction for Cyber Monday alone: 56 percent will shop online.

Despite accounting for only a small piece of the online retail pie, small business owners like Randi Stricker, who owns Smarti Pantz Toys in Highland, Ind., are getting in on the action. "We've started sending out store promotions through our e-mail list," she said.

As retailers large and small scramble to bring in business during the normally lucrative holiday season, the industry is eyeing its Web sites for good news.

"Cyber Monday is going to be very interesting to watch," said Phil Rist, vice president of strategy at BIGresearch, the federation's partner in conducting its reports.

Krugman believes he understands why online promotions will be so valuable to companies using e-commerce this season. "In an economic environment like this," he said, "all retailers become discount retailers."