Cyber Monday: Is E-Commerce's Big Holiday Sales Day Obsolete?

By Matt Brownell
Daily Finance

In 2005, someone at Shop.org, the e-commerce wing of the National Retail Federation, had an idea: Why not give online retail its own version of Black Friday? Online shopping was getting more popular every year, so it made sense to promote it with a holiday season day of its own. E-commerce sales were already showing a spike on the Monday following Black Friday, so Cyber Monday was born.

The extent to which the decision to promote Cyber Monday as a big shopping and deals day has fed e-commerce's subsequent growth is unclear, but grow it has: Online sales have risen by double-digit percentages every holiday season, and this year, for the first time, more than half of shoppers are expected to do at least some of their holiday shopping online.Retailers are responding by making more and more of their Black Friday deals available online on Thursday and Friday.

"We're seeing almost unanimously across the board that stores are going to have online Black Friday sales," says Michael Brin, founder of BFAds, which compiles Black Friday circulars as they're released or leaked. "If I was going to shop online on one day in November, it would be Thanksgiving."

And it's not just the traditional retailers' online operations going this route -- big online retailers like NewEgg and Amazon are likewise running big sales on Thursday and Friday, not to mention in the days and weeks leading up to it.



But it also raises an existential question for Cyber Monday: If Thanksgiving and Black Friday are getting more "cyber" every year, do we still need a special day just for online retail?

The Power of the Promotion

NRF spokesperson Kathy Grannis says that even as online deals become more common on Black Friday, Cyber Monday will still have tremendous promotional value for online retailers.

"Much like Black Friday is the one day that [bricks-and-mortar] retail has to pull out all the stops, Cyber Monday is that day for online retailers," she says. "They get to offer some of the tricks they've been holding onto all season."

And they seem to pull out more tricks every year. Bryant Quan, CEO of deal-tracking site SlickDeals, says that in 2009, roughly 900 Cyber Monday deals were posted to the site's forums. By 2011, that number had risen to 1,300. Online-only operations in particular continue to embrace Cyber Monday as their time to shine, free of the distraction of Thanksgiving football and in-store doorbusters.

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"There are so many online-only stores, and they rely heavily on Cyber Monday," says Howard Schaffer, vice president at Offers.com. "In talking to our partners, we're hearing that their best deals are going to be on Cyber Monday. They'll certainly have deals planned for Thanksgiving and Black Friday, but on Cyber Monday they know have a lot larger audience."

The sales figures certainly back that up. According to digital analytics firm ComScore, it's been the biggest day for online sales for the last two years, with spending on the day growing from just over $1 billion in 2010 to $1.25 billion in 2011. A spokesperson for ComScore estimates that spending on Cyber Monday 2012 will grow to roughly $1.5 billion.