Play.com said sales of Jackson's 10 top selling albums had soared by a staggering 7,860% while searches for Jackson had increased by nearly 9,000%.

The first 14 slots in Amazon's best selling 50 albums are now taken up by Jackson's albums.

Top of the pile is Jackson's first solo album, Off The Wall, which featured tracks such as Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough and She's Out Of My Life.

It was followed by the world famous 1987 album Bad and Thriller.

Thriller was the biggest selling album of all time, selling between 50 million and 100 million albums and was promoted by probably the most famous video in pop.

A further two copies of Thriller figure in the top 20, which also features an array of compilations of his material, including the recently released King Of Pop at number eight.

Jackson's music also dominates the Apple iTunes downloads.

Eighteen songs are in the top 100 downloads, with Man In The Mirror at no 11.

The former pop star failed to make a dent in the HMV downloads charts.

But the store gave its homepage over to promoting Jackson's entire back catalogue.

Jackson's career had stagnated in recent years.

But Gennaro Castaldo, of HMV, said sales of the star's material was increasing after Jackson unveiled his 50-date This Is It residency at the 02 arena in London.

"We always find where a great icon dies that there's a massive uplift in their music sales as fans want to connect and express their grief through the records," he said.

Mr Castaldo said it was likely Jackson would now take over the download charts.

"Now, with downloads and the instant access they give, we can probably expect the charts to light up with his songs," he said.

Supermarket giant Teso said it has seen a tenfold increase in sales of Jackson's compilation albums King of Pop and Number Ones