Myths And Realities Of Cyber Monday

It started with "Black Friday," giving a catchy marketing moniker to a certain shopping day to drive people to the stores and ultimately increase sales.

The name worked so well that in 2005, as many consumers began moving online for their holiday shopping, marketers came up with another quasi-shopping holiday: "Cyber Monday."

The only problem is "Cyber Monday" is not the biggest online shopping day of the year.

"People tend to procrastinate, and as "Green Monday" approaches, people take action to ensure they get the items they want in time," said Rick Petry, CEO and interim president of the Electronic Retailers Association.

Wait, "Green Monday?" Where did that come from?

"Green Monday" is an online retail industry term that was coined by eBay for the second Monday in December, the true largest online spending day of the holiday season. The term has nothing to do with the environment, the "green" reference is actually to the amount of cash that flows in on that day.

Generally, the heavy spending on the web begins on "Black Friday", peaks on "Cyber Monday" and then dips significantly as Christmas approaches, mainly because of shipping deadlines. Consider the online spending numbers from 2007, as reported by 3tailer.com via comScore.

"Black Friday": $430 million
"Cyber Monday": $610 million
"Green Monday": $881 million

Though "Green Monday" is the actual the biggest digital sales day, it appears "Cyber Monday" is the term that the industry will likely continue to coalesce around for marketing purposes. Expect to see many web retailers to offer many "Cyber Monday" deals, including free shipping. There's no sign of any "Green Monday" promotions, at least not yet.

But Petry thinks the industry should move beyond Mondays.

"Think about it – suggesting that Monday, the beginning of the work week, should be the advent of the online shopping season is like giving employees license to conduct all their holiday gift buying on their employer’s time. As pervasive as wireless computers are, why can’t we have things kick off with a "Season of Sharing Saturday?" he said.

Will People Shop Online In Bad Economy?

So taking all of the information above, how will the sinking economy impact sales this holiday season?

"This is going to be a bad year for retailers in general," Donna L. Hoffman, co-director of the Sloan Center for Internet Retailing at UC Riverside told the Press-Enterprise of Southern California. "The bottom line is that the economy has collapsed and consumers are not in a spending mood."

Predictions are mixed on what the final sales numbers will be for this year, however, most agree that online sales will improve more over last year than traditional brick and mortar stores. Many experts think online sales will increase 10 percent over last year, while the National Retail Federation sees increases around 2 percent for holiday sales overall.

Petry, of the Electronic Retailers Association, said the reason for the bigger jump in online sales is simple.

"In an age of media multitasking, what could be more convenient that sitting in front of your television while you shop online?" he said.

BostonChannel.com