Since the economy tanked more than a month ago, Hoffman Estates-based CouponCabin.com has been seeing about a 40 percent increase in online traffic.

In fact, traffic has been even more intense in recent weeks, often rivaling last year's Cyber Monday, the Monday following the bricks-and-mortar Black Friday after Thanksgiving when consumers traditionally kick off holiday shopping.

Whipsawed consumers, eager to save money, have been jumping onto the site to surf among 6,600 coupons from about 1,200 merchants, said site President Scott Kluth.

"We haven't done any special releases, so I believe it's just been word-of-mouth," said Kluth.

CouponCabin.com was founded by Kluth about five years ago and now ranks 163 overall by Inc. Magazine's Inc. 500. The site allows consumers to download coupons, free of charge, for all kinds of products and services from Pizza Hut specials to T-shirts and gifts.

Typically, the site saw 60,000 people a day. After the stock market tanked last month, traffic jumped to around 85,000 a day.

Now since the election, the number of consumers have often rivaled the 130,000 to 180,000 per day from last year's Black Friday and Cyber Monday shopping days, Kluth said.

"This week has just been crazy," he said.

The activity on CouponCabin.com has also helped to boost the one-year-old related site, CheapUncle.com, which offers coupons with comparison shopping.

The online shopping experience has been evolving and Kluth finds that as time passes, more consumers download coupons and more merchants provide additional coupons.

"More and more, people are no longer reluctant to shop online and feel more confident about what they're doing," said Kluth. "Even my mother shops online now."

Surfing: Arlington Heights-based Incredible Technologies, a manufacturer of video games, has been issued licenses to manufacture and distribute electronic gaming devices by the state of Nevada. The company plans to debut its Magic Touch line of Class III video slot, poker and keno products at the upcoming Global Gaming Expo in Las Vegas later this month, the company said. See itcasinogames.com.

•The BlackBerry Storm, the first touch-screen BlackBerry smartphone with a "clickable" touch-screen, will be available beginning Nov. 21 in Verizon Wireless Communications stores and online at www.verizonwireless.com for $199.99 after a $50 mail-in rebate with a new two-year customer agreement. For details about the Storm, see VerizonWireless.com/storm.