Online Sales Expected to Jingle

Shares of some of the smaller public e-commerce companies on Monday were boosted by

Shopping.com's

upbeat prediction about online holiday shopping.

Earlier in the day, the online price-comparison service said that it expects to record 33% year-over-year revenue growth in the fourth quarter, bolstered by strong holiday e-commerce sales. The report was

the first guidance the company had given for the holiday period.

Apparently in reaction, shares of

Blue Nile

(NILE)

,

eCost.com

( ECST) and

Overstock.com

(OSTK) - Get Report

all got a bump up. In the regular session, Blue Nile shares closed up $1.40, or 5.5%, to $26.87; eCost shares ended the day up 40 cents, or 2.5%, to $16.53; and Overstock's closed up 92 cents, or 1.7%, to $56.05.

All three companies devote a large chunk of their marketing budgets to online advertisers, in particular to price-comparison sites such as Shopping.com.

Sales and revenue for e-commerce companies and offline retailers are typically most robust in the fourth quarter.

However, some e-commerce players saw little benefit from Shopping.com's report. Shares of

eBay

(EBAY) - Get Report

, for instance, closed up $1.14, or 1.1%, to $109.48, while shares of

Amazon.com

(AMZN) - Get Report

were off 50 cents, or 1.3%, to $38.05.