The New York Times reports on a study in The Journal of Commercial Research which concludes that consumers will spend more if they think about how much money they have right before shopping. Specifically, supermarket shoppers surveyed who thought about their wealth before buying spent 36% more than those who did not.

This study suggests that people spend based on how much they think they have -- what I would call their "cognitive wealth reserves." In one experiment, 55 shoppers at a supermarket in Cambridge, MA were asked a series of nosy questions about their wallets: Did they have any library cards? Did they carry pictures or cash? How many other wallets did they own?

An equal number were asked similar questions about their financial portfolios instead.

Attention holiday shoppers: online merchants are planning to make it really worth your while to buy stuff from their websites this holiday season. That may not be such great news for investors, though.

As the Wall Street Journal notes, the offers will include free shipping, online-only discounts and gift wrapping, a skill I have never mastered. The news isn't that these offers are available, but that more of them are coming. Even with the worries about overall holiday spending, online holiday spending is expected to rise 21% this year to $33 billion, the paper said, citing data from Forrester Research.

Though this is great news for consumers, it underscores how worried retailers are about the holiday season, which most pundits expect to be lackluster overall. High gas prices also may keep consumers away from shopping malls.

That's good news for the likes of Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN), which is offering Black Friday deals for the first time, and eBay (NASDAQ: EBAY), which is offering free shipping on some goods. Bricks-and-mortar merchants are already getting the message.

Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT), which had been in Wall Street's dog house for quite a while, is well-aware of these trends. The world's largest retailer surprised Wall Street when it said that its decision to start discounting two weeks earlier than usual paid off. The company's quarterly profit rose more than analysts' forecasts, and it boosted its full-year outlook. Though shares have jumped the most in five years, they are still down for the year.

Further crimping the profits of online merchants is the rising popularity of comparison shopping sites such as Shopzilla. For instance, I found prices for the Nintendo Wii console ranging from $329 to $650, so it pays to comparison shop. That's great for consumers but bad for merchants because it ratchets up price competition.

People couldn't grab flat-panel TVs or computers fast enough over the weekend, giving retailers a promising view for this holiday season. But not all stores found success. In fact Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE:WMT), even though it discounted aggressively throughout November, reported its weakest monthly sales in more than 10 years, according to today's Wall Street Journal (subscription required).

The Journal also reported that ShopperTrak RCT Corp estimated Black Friday sales increased 6% over last year. ShopperTrak gathers its data from 45,000 electronic counting devices in malls and strip shopping centers.

Shopping started even earlier this year as some stores began Black Friday earlier on Friday morning or even on Thursday. Also good news for retailers is that the average purchase was up nearly 9% over last year. The Journal got that estimate from an analyst for VISA who tracks purchases made on credit cards. But Black Friday is not about buying for Christmas anymore. It's more about finding the best buys for personnel use. Especially popular are big-ticket items offered at deep discounts.

The National Retail Federation said 140 million people went shopping on Friday and spent an average of $360.15 - up nearly 19% from last year's $302.81. About 50% of these shoppers went to discounters. Online retails also saw a big jump on Black Friday. Sales were up 41% from $305 million last year to $434 million this year, according to a Web-tracking firm comScore Networks.

Cyber Monday should be even more promising for online retailers. ComScore predicts a 24% jump from $484 million last year to $599 million today. Are you planning to go out there and start clicking?

Had enough of the malls already? Today is the recently anointed retail landmark known as Cyber Monday. It is the first Monday after Thanksgiving and the day that shoppers, in theory already weary of the extreme shopping experience offered on Black Friday, are ready to shop from the comfort of their office chairs.

The day got its name from trade group Shop.Org just last year and doesn't represent the biggest online shopping day -- just one of the biggest, according to an article in the The New York Times (registration required). The headline predicts, "E-Looking But Little E-Buying," and the article pokes fun at the alleged phenomenon, quoting a retail analyst saying the day is "more hype than reality."

Perhaps this year that record will change as more stores offer special online deals. Barnes & Noble, The Home Depot, Inc. (NYSE:HD), and Petco.com are mentioned in The Times as having special offers today. GottaDeal.com has a special CyberMonday forum listing online offers from Staples, Inc. (NASDAQ:SPLS), Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE:WMT) and Best Buy Co., Inc. (NYSE:BBY).