Last year, for the first time, the Monday after Thanksgiving was the biggest online shopping day of the year by sales, and the first day ever that online spending passed $1 billion, according to comScore, a research company that measures Web use.
This year, with a record-breaking Black Friday — shoppers spent $816 million online, 26 percent more than last year, in addition to spending more offline — online retailers are gearing up for Monday to once again be their best of the season.
Seventy-eight percent are offering promotions, according to Shop.org, an industry group. Almost half will offer discounts, while 38 percent will run limited-time flash sales and a third will have free shipping.
“It’s going to be up there again, no doubt,” said Gian Fulgoni, chairman of comScore and an e-commerce expert.
“We were all surprised last year when we saw it turned out to be the biggest day of the season,” he said. “But more and more retailers have become a part of the Cyber Monday kickoff, more and more consumers are aware of it and know there are special deals coming — and you put that together and you’ve got an important day.”
The Monday after Thanksgiving was Amazon.com’s busiest day for the first time last year, when it sold 13.7 million items. Previously, the busiest day fell in mid-December on the last day Amazon offered free shipping in time for Christmas.
The day was also the biggest last year for LivingSocial, the daily deal site, and for PayPal, which saw a 19 percent increase in online payment volume over the year before.
Many retailers have such high hopes for the day that they are trying to expand it. Toys “R” Us offered Cyber Monday deals on Sunday night, and will continue them through the week. West Elm began its promotion last Wednesday, and Target went so far as to offer Cyber Monday deals in September.
Still, there are naysayers who view the day as more hype than reality. At Blue Nile, the online jeweler, the last day for free shipping by Christmas remains the biggest sales day, said Mark Vadon, Blue Nile’s chairman.
Sales during the online shopping day topped $1 billion last year and could reach $1.2 billion this year, according to a report from the Los Angeles Times. What is known as Cyber Monday became the largest online sales day of the year for the first time in 2010, the report said. Though the online bargain day still has a long way to go before it catches up with Black Friday, Internet retailers are expected to do well this year after high sales from the weekend. ComScore reported that e-commerce spending was up 26 percent online for the days following Thanksgiving, the Associated Press reported Sunday. A Friday estimate from IBM research found that online shopping was up 20 percent.
Black Friday sales set records this year, pulling in $52.4 billion, according to figures from the National Retail Foundation. Those numbers, which represent sales over a four-day period that starts on Thanksgiving, are up 16.7 percent compared with the same period last year.
Shopping behemoth Amazon is making a big push for Cyber Monday, though it is also doing its best to feed consumers’ appetites for bargains by staggering the release of their best deals throughout the week. Other stores on the Web-- such as Best Buy, Barnes and Noble and Overstock.com --- are offering deep discounts on electronics, toys and other products.
It’s estimated that half of all Cyber Monday purchases last year were made at work, attributed partly to the fast-paced nature of online shopping. While there’s little risk of being trampled on the way to grab the best online specials, shoppers still need to jump on deals before stock runs out.
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