Taken together with numbers from Black Friday and last weekend, these are encouraging, but not conclusive, data that consumer spending for the holidays may not be quite as bad as predicted. And while that won’t solve the economy’s deep problems, it would constitute good news, which is in short supply.

This should also hearten potential investors in Amazon (AMZN), which increasingly looks like it will be one of the only clear winners this holiday season.

So what does that mean? Nothing, really: Assuming the data are accurate, we still don’t know what people actually spent, and what they spent it on. We’re likely get a few more pieces of the puzzle today, when/if comScore (SCOR) comes out with its online commerce numbers. But the most important data are still locked away in retailers’ databases, and that stuff won’t be public for some time.

[UPDATE: ComScore says sales were up 15 percent.]

One way to tell how retailers really did: Ask somebody who sells Web advertising. An ad exec for an online publisher I spoke to yesterday told me that December sales had “stopped cold” because his clients wanted to see what their Black Friday/Cyber Monday numbers looked like before committing any more ad dollars this year.

He’s hoping for good news. As of last night, he hadn’t heard a peep.

In the meantime, here’s an array of data points from Nielsen and rival Web measurement firm Hitwise. Here are Nielsen’s top online retail destinations, ranked by unique visitors. Note the big increases at Amazon (AMZN), Best Buy (BBY) and Sears (SHLD). Why is Netflix (NFLX) considered an online retailer? Got me. (Click to enlarge)

And here’s Hitwise’s summary of Cyber Monday; note that its take on traffic seems to differ from Nielsen’s when it comes to overall visits:

• Among the top 500 Retail Web sites, the percentage of U.S. visits was down 1% on Cyber Monday 2008 compared with 2007.
• U.S. visits to Brick and Mortar store Web sites (100 total) were down 4% on Cyber Monday.
• U.S. visits to Online-only Web sites (100 total) were up 5% on on Cyber Monday.
• U.S. visits to the Comparison Shopping Web sites were down 21% on Cyber Monday.
• U.S. visits to the Catalog Web sites were down 4% on Cyber Monday.
• The top visited Retail Web site on Cyber Monday 2008 was Amazon.com, receiving 10.77% of U.S. visits among the top 500 Retail Web sites. Walmart.com was the second most visited with 8.55% of visits, followed by Target.com with 4.56%. BestBuy.com was the fourth most visited with 3.81%, and Sears.com was fifth with 2.74% of visits.
• Amazon.com’s traffic increased 21% on Cyber Monday 2008 vs. 2007. Walmart.com’s traffic increased 6%.

[Image Credit: Respres]

This is all about expectations: In any other setting those numbers would be a calamity. But given that online sales for the rest of November have been lower than the previous year, this constitutes good news for the likes of Amazon (AMZN).

Thursday’s numbers were even better: Thanksgiving day sales increased six percent over the previous year (click image to enlarge).

But two days of data aren’t enough to make comScore (SCOR) or anyone else rethink their overall predictions for the holiday season, which remain dour. ComScore thinks overall sales will be flat.

Separately, eBay’s (EBAY) PayPal reported that transaction volume on Friday increased 34 percent over the previous year and that overall sales increased 26 percent. PayPal claims that its numbers represent 12 percent of U.S. e-commerce, but I don’t think those numbers will be nearly as heartening for most big retailers, which aren’t depending on the online payment service.