Cyber Monday
The first Monday after Thanksgiving in American is called Cyber Monday. This is an event marked by special sales and discounts offered by online retailers. The Friday before is Black Friday, the largest shopping day of the year, and Cyber Monday continues this period of holiday shopping with events particular to the online shopping scene. As online shopping becomes more popular and Black Friday events become more crowded and aggressive, the day is growing in popularity over Black Friday.
Black Friday is considered the beginning of the shopping season, so neither Black Friday nor Cyber Monday are considered public holidays but rather commercial events. While large crowds still flock to Black Friday sales, a large group of consumers are dissuaded by the crowds and wish to partake in Cyber Monday deals instead. Many people are traveling for Thanksgiving during Black Friday and do shopping the week after instead. It is widely acknowledged that much of this shopping is done during work hours, so some retailers offer special lunch hour deals.
Although online deals have taken place on this day long before Cyber Monday was termed, it was established in 2005 by marketing companies. One of the first references to the name “Cyber Monday” was in Shop.org’s press release of that same year. About 77% of retailers saw in increase in sales on Cyber Monday. In 2006, consumers spent around $608 million and in 2010, shoppers spent over a billion dollars online on Cyber Monday.
Statistics for Cyber Monday 2012:
- Sales increased by 30.3%
- 70% more shoppers used mobile devices
- A large number of sales come from social referrals, the largest of which come through Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest
- Shoppers spent between $1.5 and $2 billion dollars
- The peak shopping time was around 11:25 a.m.
- 7% of sales occurred through iPads
