What is Cyber Monday?
The term Cyber Monday refers to the Monday immediately following Black Friday, which is the day after Thanksgiving and the ceremonial kick-off of the holiday online shopping season. Similar to Black Friday, one of the busiest shopping days of the year when retail stores often offer significant discounts, Cyber Monday has in recent years become a busy day for online retailers, and one in which online stores offer similarly low prices and promotions. Source
According to MasterCard, three out of four shoppers plan to shop online. And, people are expected to spend $300 online out of a total holiday spend of $700 each this year.
Even if you don’t plan to participate in online shopping the Monday after Thanksgiving, you may want to be prepared for the fact that Internet speed may be significantly lagging on computers all across America, as a result of Cyber Monday.
In 2005, online traffic peaked the Monday after Thanksgiving, reaching 27.7 million visits, compared with 23.9 million Friday, and 21 million Saturday and Sunday, Nielsen Net Ratings, a marketing research firm, found.
The name Cyber Monday grew out of the observation that millions of otherwise productive working Americans, fresh off a Thanksgiving weekend of window shopping, were returning to high-speed Internet connections at work Monday and buying what they liked. Source
Last year, the most popular sites were:
- eBay, with 11.7 million visitors on Cyber Monday
- Amazon, with 5.6 million
- Wal-Mart, with 3 million
Cyber Monday: Myth or Reality?
So, is it true? Could this really be the busiest online shopping day of the year?
Well, not exactly.
It may be more of a retailer’s ploy to simply market Cyber Monday as the best day for online sales & specials.
And after a year or two of this… it may actually work. (Isn’t that how Black Friday came about?)
Despite a huge amount of hype, the Monday after Thanksgiving is historically only the 12th-biggest online shopping day of the year. BusinessWeek
Check out the Cyber Monday Online Sales For 2006!
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Always on the lookout for a good bargain, I consider myself a frugal person — but not cheap. And not afraid to spend money on the things that matter. I like to share good deals with others when I find them. One of my favorite ways to save money is to reuse items in ways other than their intended purpose — so I write a lot about outside-the-box ideas that most people wouldn't think of! When I'm not saving money or looking for good deals, you'll find me at the corner of Good News & Fun Times as publisher of The Fun Times Guide (32 fun & helpful websites).
