What Black Friday is to traditional brick and mortar stores, Cyber Monday is to online retailers.

Monday marks the online retail industry's ceremonial kickoff for the holiday shopping season. The National Retail Federation says more than 80 percent of retailers will have special promotions online, which is up from last year.

The group's Shop.org division says this is also a big day for people to do some holiday shopping online at work. It says most people do it during their lunch hour.

 More: Holiday shopping season has strong start

The group has its own portal, featuring hundreds of merchants, where you can find some special promotions on the Cyber Monday Web site.

GiftTree in Vancouver took a steady stream of calls.  The online gift packaging business provided deals for Cyber Monday.  It’s CEO said historically today doesn’t have the same impact as Black Friday for brick and mortar stores.  Some of the company’s big customers are backing off high end purchases, so the expectation for sales is about the same as last year.

"We're expecting what sales were last year we're not expecting our normal very large growth rate, just being a lot more careful this year," said Craig Bowen.

 Bowen said Cyber Monday is more of a bump that builds momentum to busier online shopping days, which are next week. 

(KGW Reporter Jane Smith contributed to this report)