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This year marks the third anniversary of Cyber Monday, a term coined by Shop.org. It’s had quite an active life in its first three years. I am a proud supporter of Cyber Monday because I think it’s good for the online retail industry. It creates excitement about the online holiday shopping season and it supports Shop.org’s Ray M. Greenly Scholarship Fund. And, as long as the data support the Monday after Thanksgiving as an important day for online retail, I plan to support and, if necessary, defend Cyber Monday.
As background, Shop.org coined the term Cyber Monday in 2005 based on the results of our eHoliday survey in which 77% of retailers told us that their sales increased noticeably the Monday after Thanksgiving. We gave it the Cyber Monday name and were as surprised as anyone at the media coverage that has followed the past three years.
Cyber Monday has come to represent the ceremonial kick-off of the online holiday season marked by many online retailers offering specials and promotions. It was selected as the “kick off” day because it represents the first significant spike in online holiday spending.
Yet, each year, Cyber Monday faces naysayers, who I like to call Cyber Monday grinches. These Cyber Monday grinches include columnists, reporters, bloggers, Wikipedia contributors, researchers and others. Why they are inspired to discredit Cyber Monday is a mystery to me. But, I thought I would use the Shop.org blog to dispel some of the common criticisms of Cyber Monday.
Criticism #1 – Cyber Monday is *not* the biggest day for online shopping.
This is absolutely correct. If anyone can tell me who has made this claim, I’d like to hear from them to understand why they believe this. Fortunately, this criticism has been mostly clarified. I saw a number of Cyber Monday stories this year clarifying that the biggest online shopping day comes later in the season.
Criticism #2 – Cyber Monday is an outdated concept because there is no reason to shop at work when so many people have broadband Internet access in their homes.
This is a logical argument. However, based on the data from our BIGresearch study, the percent of people planning to shop online at work during the holiday season is increasing despite more broadband access in homes. This year, according to a BIGresearch survey conducted for Shop.org, 54.5 percent of office workers with Internet access, or 68.5 million people, will shop for holiday gifts from work, up substantially from 50.7 percent in 2006 and 44.7 percent in 2005.
Critcism #3 – Thanksgiving and Black Friday, not Cyber Monday, are the “real” first spikes in online holiday spending.
According to comScore, Cyber Monday’s $733 million in online sales this year were 28% higher than Black Friday and 171% higher than Thanksgiving.
Criticism #4 – Increased shopping on Cyber Monday or any Monday is a “myth” because online shopping is stronger in the middle of the week.
Looking at comScore data again, this doesn’t seem to be the case. Two of the top three days of online retail spending in 2006 were Mondays. The biggest day was Wednesday, December 13, which was merely 1% higher than the second biggest day. The second and third biggest days were, respectively, Monday, December 11 and Monday, December 4.
Criticism #5 – Cyber Monday diminishes worker productivity because people are shopping at their computers when they should doing work.
There’s a great article from the Washington Post last November that provides a good perspective on this issue. The article argues that as work increasingly blends into employees personal lives via Blackberrys and home email access, employers have found that doing personal work, such as shopping, at work, helps increase productivity.
10 Comments
Hi Scott
I appreciate your comments and perspective. I’m not looking to force your defense of Cyber Monday… just wondering if the question should be about whether C.M. is invented (brought on by individual retailers marketing around that day) vs a naturally occurring spike in shopping that day. So did the 77% of retailers who saw an increase in sales also drive that traffic? Also I’m curious about what retailers understood to be the measure here – sales increased noticeably over what? Sunday? Black Friday? It would be interesting to understand whether people are saying Cyber Monday is the beginning of a holiday plateau. Anyhow – that’s for the focus on this. Good stuff.
- Mike
Mike,
When we asked about CM originally, the 77% were referring to 2004, which was prior to CM being named. So, it was originally a naturally occurring spike. I would expect that this has changed since then as retailers have been so aggressive in featuring CM promotions. The exact phrasing of the question, which was fielded in late September 2005, was “Did your sales increase noticeably LAST YEAR on the Monday AFTER Thanksgiving?” It was a yes or no answer. Of 112 retailers asked, 86 said yes and 26 said no. Based on the phrasing of the question, it’s hard to answer “noticeably to what.” Hope this helps.
-Scott
Scott, I think you hit the nail on the head. Cyber Monday is definitely an important landmark that represents the first significant spike in holiday online shopping activity, but it is not the heaviest day of the season. That will happen sometime in mid-December. While Black Friday is heavier than average, it does not historically represent a huge jump in online spending.
To suggest that Cyber Monday is a myth ignores the importance of shopping from work to overall e-commerce spending. (In fact, 60% of spending came from work computers on Cyber Monday this year.) Because of this, online spending is significantly higher on weekdays than on weekends, and Monday and Tuesday tend to be the heaviest spending days of the week. Thus, the first workday after Thanksgiving is bound to see online spending surge, and indeed we see that occur each year.
Scott,
Although I appreciate that the scholarship is a good cause, since the world definitely needs more online retailers, perhaps Shop.org might consider offering retailers who participate a choice of charities to receive what has become significant revenue? How about breast cancer research or Jewelers for Children? Consumers might find Cyber Monday even more compelling if it made a significant contribution to an even worthier cause.
Cheryl – thank your for your suggestion. We’ll take it into consideration.
As new ecommerce entreprenuer, I like the term Cyber Monday which generates interest and pr for on-line shopping. This is just a way to denote a kick off for the ON-LINE HOLIDAY SEASON just like Black Friday is the kick off for in store sales. Usually Black Friday is not the biggest shopping day for Holiday In-store sales either but it is the kick-off.
Ah, so you think you coined the phrase “cyber monday”? I hate to burst your bubble, but the term was in use as far back as 1999. I remember specifically reading it numerous places, and even using it in my meetings with clients, way back in the day. Your domain has existed since 1996, but perhaps it belonged to someone else?
I stand by Scott as a supporter of CyberMonday (CM), but I am troubled by the discounting angle.
When and why did the CM concept morph from
“CM is a really big online sales day (even if not the biggest), which is quite interesting and shows the importance of online retail and is great PR angle”
into
“CM is a really big online sales day, and so it follows we should cut prices”?
My favorite C.M. quote this year was from Bill Bass in Monday’s NYT –
Hallelujah, Bill!
CM discounting is a classic economic tragedy of the commons — it hurts us all, but we have to do it because everyone else is doing it.
Scott,
Given my posting on another e-commerce blog, I suppose you could lump me in with “naysayers” you reference in your post! But, in reality, I don’t think all this talk about attacking or defending the notion of Cyber Monday is really the point. The important factor for retailers (and those of us that support them with products and services) is that the holiday season is an increasingly important time for online selling. If the notion of Cyber Monday is a rallying point or a kick start to increased buying online, I’m all for it, whether or not it is actually *the* biggest online shopping day.
It was fantastic!!!
We need to do a kind of Cyber Monday here in Brazil.
Those criticism are natural and reveals that Cyber Monday has come to stay.
Hope see it soon…