Today, Monday December 12, is an important date in the internet calendar. By the time midnight strikes it is likely to have been the busiest day for online retailing in 2005.

It might even have been the busiest ever.

There are several reasons for this. The first, and most obvious, is that online purchases will take time to deliver before Christmas.

Another, according to the price comparison of one portal, is that the second weekend in December is when most people make up their minds what they intend to buy for friends and relatives. They do so by researching their potential purchases in the shops.

By the time Monday comes they are ready to buy online. International logistics company FedEx expects to handle more than eight million parcels worldwide today alone.

According to Deloitte consulting a growing number of retailers have come to the realisation that, without an online presence they are simply not going to survive the increasing competition in the Christmas market.

Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, the week after Thanksgiving, which gives some indication of year-on-year increases in online shopping, has shown a 26% leap over 2004. Again, the big day is a Monday - in this case, Monday November 28.

This year, according to comScore Networks, online sales in the US over those 24 hours amounted to $$485m - up from $$386m the previous year.

The day has become known as Cyber Monday. Another interesting fact about it (which also appears to apply to December 12) is that people are doing much of their online shopping from computer terminals at work.

Whatever the interesting news angles, it appears something fairly dramatic is happening. Customers - particularly the high-spending 45 to 54-year-olds - are becoming more comfortable with the internet as a shopping channel.

But some companies are enjoying higher increases in sales than others. Internet Retailer reports that American luggage specialists Luggage Online enjoyed a massive 70% increase in sales in the week after Thanksgiving compared with the same period in 2004.

The reason? According to the company, it is mostly down to its redesigned website. A better layout, improved navigation, and new shopping tools have helped to improve conversion rates (in other words, turning visitors into buyers) by 27%.

At the same time, Nielsen/Netratings reports on a newly identified phenomenon. Apparently half of all online purchases are made by only a fifth of those who buy. In other words, one in five of your customers are what the company calls MVPs - most valuable shoppers. Nielsen says this makes the case for identifying these customers and developing marketing programmes to maximise this source of revenue.

Here's a hint to finding out who they are: they also tend to be on a broadband connection and are heavy users of the internet in general.

Increasing online sales in the US after Thanksgiving are usually an indicator of something similar to come in the UK Christmas market. But there is even better news for internet retailers on this side of the pond.

The Internet Marketing in Retail Group reckons that because British trends have, until now, been slightly behind the American experience, online sales have the potential to leap by 40% this festive season.

At a time when it looks likely that there will be blood on the high street because of declining business, this is highly significant. No other retail channel is looking forward to anything like this level of growth.

Merely having a website, of course, does not guarantee that you will share in the bonanza. It depends on a whole range of things - not least being sure that the customer can find your site in the ever-spreading internet jungle.

It can also depend, as Luggage Online discovered, on ensuring that your site does the business you expect it to do once the visitor has dropped in.

It is too late to do anything about any of these things in time for this Christmas, but you could make it a New Year resolution to make sure that you are in a prime position to take advantage of next year's festive market. The planning starts now. And I will bet my bottom dollar that we will have at least a similar level of online retail growth in 2006.

Ken Roulston is managing director of Finisco Business Solutions, a leading provider of web- based and client server solutions.