This holiday season, many consumers are watching their wallets as they shop for gifts. Luckily, online retailers are making it easy by showcasing coupons, free shipping, and clearance deals.

While the overall projections for holiday shopping is a mere 2.2 percent increase (the lowest in years), online growth is at 17 percent, which shows that consumers are catching on to the idea of online shopping. We've got expert tips on how shoppers can save even more time and money.

What is Cyber Monday?

Cyber Monday is the Monday after Black Friday. While the deals are typically not as good as what you will find on Black Friday, most merchants still offer some good sales.

• Look for Cyber Monday sites to do all the bargain hunting automatically.
• Take advantage of the variety of Cyber Monday specific deals merchants have set up.
• Buy from sites with free shipping — but be sure to read the fine print as some retailers have strings attached!
• Watch for one-day sales and special emails since lots of online retailers will be sending them out this year.

Recommended Cyber Monday sites:

CyberMonday.com:  Shop hot holiday deals from more than 500 merchants. All of Shop.org's proceeds from CyberMonday.com support the Ray Greenly Scholarship Fund.

GottaDeal.com:  In addition to boards focused on online and offline deals and bargains, their forum has dedicated message boards for topics like contests & sweepstakes, grocery coupons, freebies, surveys, finance, technology and much more.

DealTaker.com:  Over the past four years, the DealTaker.com's Black Friday section has had the most comprehensive listing of advanced sales for the Monday after Thanksgiving.

CouponMountain.com:  This site offers coupons, deals, sales and more promotional offers for thousands of online stores, including Dell, Buy.com, Target, Office Depot and more.

Information provided by D S Simon Productions, Inc.