In the United States, Cyber Monday is a marketing phrase for the Monday after the Thanksgiving holiday.1)
Retailers established it to entice customers to purchase online.2)
Ellen Davis of the National Retail Federation and Scott Silverman invented the phrase. It first aired on November 28, 2005.3)
According to a news release from Shop.org headlined “'Cyber Monday' Is Quickly Becoming One of the Biggest Online Shopping Days of the Year”.4)
It is celebrated on the Monday after Thanksgiving and usually falls in November, however if Thanksgiving falls on November 27 or 28, it will fall in December. The dates are November 26 to December 2. It is always four days following the holiday.5)
According to the Shop.org/Bizrate Research 2005 eHoliday Mood Study, 77 percent of online shops reported a significant rise in sales on the Monday after Thanksgiving.6)
Cyber Monday online sales reached a new high of $6.59 billion in 2017, up from $2.98 billion in 2015 and $2.65 billion in 2014. However, the average order value was $128, down significantly from $160 in 2014.7)
Cyber Monday has evolved into the internet's counterpart of Black Friday. It allows smaller retail websites to compete with larger companies.8)
Since its debut, it has evolved into an international marketing word used by internet businesses worldwide.9)
“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,” The New York Times reported in late November 2005.10)
Tony Valado, while working at 1800Flowers.com in 2003, developed the term “White Wednesday” to refer to the day before Thanksgiving for online businesses.11)
According to comScore, internet spending on Cyber Monday increased by 25% in 2006 to $608 million, 21% in 2007 to $733 million, and 15% in 2008 to $846 million.12)
In 2009, comScore estimated that online spending grew 5% 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%), a 2.3 percentage point rise from the previous year.13)
The majority of the remaining portion (41.6 percent) came from domestic purchases, while 5.8 percent came from overseas purchases.14)
“comScore statistics have indicated that Cyber Monday online sales have traditionally been driven by significant purchase activity from work locations”, said comScore chairman Gian Fulgoni. That trend has been constant. Many people choose to continue their Christmas shopping from work after returning from the long Thanksgiving weekend with a lot of holiday shopping ahead of them. This day has become an annual ritual for America's online Christmas shoppers, whether to take advantage of the huge Cyber Monday offers given by businesses or to buy gifts away from the prying eyes of family members“.15)