After the Black Friday weekend rush to malls, department stores and discounters, the shopping continues for consumers Monday — online.
Cyber Monday, the now-accepted kickoff to the online holiday shopping season, was coined in 2005 after Web retailers noticed a glut of people shopping online — most of them on their high-speed computers at work — on the Monday after Thanksgiving.
Last year, Cyber Monday totaled $733 million in online spending, a 19 percent increase from 2006 and an 84 percent jump from the average daily online spending totals during the preceding weeks, according to comscore.com.
“As shoppers focus on price this holiday season, online retailers will be extremely competitive to offer the best deals,” said Scott Silverman, executive director of shop.org. “Shoppers will be able to find thousands of bargains on Cyber Monday.”
This year, about 84 percent of retailers will roll out special promotions for Cyber Monday, up from 72 percent last year, according to shop.org.
However, with retailers expected to heavily slash prices, total online sales are only expected to remain flat or increase only slightly from last year.
This week, comscore.com cut its forecast for U.S. holiday shopping, reporting that sales in the first 23 days of November had fallen to $8.2 billion, down 4 percent from the same period a year earlier.
