Cyber Monday is a marketing term for the Monday immediately following Black Friday, the Friday following Thanksgiving Day in the United States, created by companies to persuade people to shop online. The term made its debut on November 28, 2005 in a Shop.org press release entitled "'Cyber Monday' Quickly Becoming One of the Biggest Online Shopping Days of the Year".^[1]

According to the Shop.org/BizRate Research 2005 eHoliday Mood Study, "77 percent of online retailers said that their sales increased substantially on the Monday after Thanksgiving, a trend that is driving serious online discounts and promotions on Cyber Monday this year (2005)". In 2010, comScore^[2] reported that consumers spent $1.028 Billion online on Cyber Monday (excluding travel, 2009: $887M), the highest spending day of 2010.

In 2006, Shop.org announced that it launched the CyberMonday.com portal, a one-stop shop for Cyber Monday deals.^[3] Cyber Monday has become an international marketing term used by online retailers in Canada, the United Kingdom, Portugal, Germany and Chile.

Origin of term[link]

The term "Cyber Monday" is a neologism invented by Shop.org, part of the U.S. trade association National Retail Federation.^[4] It was first used within the ecommerce community during the 2005 holiday season. According to Scott Silverman, the head of Shop.org, the term was coined based on 2004 research showing "one of the biggest online shopping days of the year" was the Monday after Thanksgiving (12th-biggest day historically). Retailers also noted the biggest period was December 5 through 15 of the previous year. ^{[5] [6]} In late November 2005, the New York Times reported that "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."^[7]

United States[link]

Website[link]

At the official Cyber Monday site run by Shop.org, more than 600 retailers offered discounts in 2009. A percentage of the proceeds of the site benefits the Ray M. Greenly Scholarship Fund, which gives scholarships to students wanting to better their education in e-commerce.^[8]

Online spending[link]

In 2006, comScore reported that online spending on Cyber Monday jumped 25% to $608 million,^[9] 21% to $733 million in 2007,^[10] and 15% to $846 million in 2008.^[11]

In 2009, comScore reported that online spending increased 5 percent on Cyber Monday to $887 million and that more than half of dollars spent online at US Web sites originated from work computers (52.7 percent), representing a gain of 2.3 percentage points from last year.^[12] Buying from home comprised the majority of the remaining share (41.6 percent) while buying from international locations accounted for 5.8 percent. According to comScore chairman Gian Fulgoni, “comScore data have shown that Cyber Monday online sales have always been driven by considerable buying activity from work locations. That pattern hasn’t changed. After returning from the long Thanksgiving weekend with a lot of holiday shopping still ahead of them, many consumers tend to continue their holiday shopping from work. Whether to take advantage of the extensive Cyber Monday deals offered by retailers or to buy gifts away from the prying eyes of family members, this day has become an annual ritual for America’s online holiday shoppers.”^[12]

In 2010, comScore reported the first-ever $1 billion online shopping day ($1028M), an increase of 16 percent over 2009.^[13] In 2011, comScore reported that Cyber Week saw US consumers spend over $6 billion online from November 28 to December 2.^[14]

Employers and online shopping[link]

U.S. employers have been cracking down on employees using company equipment and company time for non-work-related purposes, including Cyber Monday. As of November 2011, 22% of employers had fired an employee for using the Internet for non-work related activity; 7% of human resource managers surveyed had fired an employee for holiday shopping; and 54% of employers were blocking employees from accessing certain websites.^[15]

Other countries[link]

Canada[link]

The National Post featured an article, in the November 25, 2010 edition, stating that the parity of the Canadian dollar with the US dollar is causing many Canadian retailers to have Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales of their own. According to the article, an estimated 80% of Canadians were expected to participate in Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales.^[16] Speculation has been made that with all major US television broadcasters—which are typically available to Canadians—emphasizing Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales for stores that are also doing business in Canada, Canadian retailers needed to mimic sales offerings in order to keep Canadian dollars from being spent in the US.^[16]

United Kingdom, Germany and Europe[link]

Cyber Monday is also used as a marketing term in the United Kingdom, Germany, Portugal and France.

• According to the Guardian, UK online retailers are now referring to "Cyber Monday" as the busiest internet shopping day of the year that commonly falls on the same day as the US Cyber Monday.^[17]
• Amazon.de announced that it brought Cyber Monday to Germany in 2010.^[18]
• In Portugal, the term Cyber Monday was first used in 2009.^[19]
• Inspired by the U.S. phenomenon, the term Cyber Monday was first used in France in 2008.^[20]

New Zealand[link]

Online retailer Belly Beyond, held the first Cyber Monday Sale in New Zealand on 29 November 2010.^[21] The sale lasted for five days, from Monday to Friday.

Chile[link]

Chile's first Cyber Monday will take place on 28 November 2011. The companies participating in the event are those part of the Santiago Chamber of Commerce's Electronic Commerce Committee, namely, Bazuca, Falabella, LAN, Paris, Ripley, Sodimac, Sony and others.^[22]

References[link]