They are calling today Mega Monday as far as online sales go.

With the run up to Christmas now well under way, an estimated five billion pounds will be spent online today.

Those who now do much of their gift buying online will be joined by those who didn’t find what they wanted in the shops at the weekend and those looking for the best prices in what will be a fantastic day for online retailers - and their affiliates.

According to Deloite, 44% of us will buy at least one present online this year, with men more likely than women to buy online and 16 to 44 year olds three times more likely to buy online than pensioners. eBay have also been busy doing research and found that 67% of people buy online because it’s convenient, 51% because they believed it was cheaper, 38% to avoid queues and 21% because of the bigger choice of products.

Another interesting piece of research comes from Hitwise who forecast that this year will be a bumper Christmas online for traditional bricks and mortar businesses with an online presence. During October, 51.1% of online visits were to an online retailer that also has an offline presence, such as Argos, Marks & Spencer and Next, while 48.9% were to a retailer without a high street presence, such as Amazon, Dell and ASOS.

This actually coincides with what I’m seeing too - and initially it took me by surprise. For example, this year I have been promoting a number of companies that sell toys and I have a number of sites that target parents. I included offers from Woolworth’s in the mix for the first time this year, not really expecting great things. In fact they have been one of my best performers in that area.

Anyway, I’ve now done as much as I can for this year in ensuring that I get a share (albeit a miniscule one) of today’s giant pie so it’s just a case of sitting back and waiting to see what commission I’ll earn as far as my affiliate commissions are concerned.

In fact that’s me finished for the year work-wise apart from the usual site maintenance. I’m spending the rest of this month taking stock of what I’ve achieved this year and  planning what I’ll be doing next year - something I did last December too and benefited enormously from.

One of the things I’m working on at the moment is how to manage my time differently - more on this soon.