This year 121.3 million are expected to make a purchase during Cyber Monday, while 126.9 million did the same last year, said the National Retail Federation.
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Cyber Monday originated when consumers returned to work after Black Friday to continue their holiday shopping online.
Some £943 million is expected to be spent online on Cyber Monday, up from £720 million past year, according to Experian-IMRG. That compares with fewer than 102 million who ventured into traditional stores, the trade group said. It turns out online shopping will increase year-round, causing the term Cyber Monday to get more blurred.
However, this year’s numbers indicate that even Cyber Monday may also be turning obsolete as an exclusive day for big holiday deals – because shoppers know Internet deals and discounts often stick around beyond the initial five-day holiday period between Thanksgiving day and Cyber Monday. What Cyber Monday does offer is often great deals on electronic items. Footfall in retail parks on Black Friday itself were down 1.8%, but Saturday and Sunday saw increases of 4.8%.
Cyber Monday is usually penciled in on calendars for the Monday right after Thanksgiving and Black Friday weekend.
This is the 10th year of the online shopping phenomenon.
Personal finance website, WalletHub, ranked the best and worst retailers offering deals for the week beginning with Cyber Monday. “We are looking for another record day today”, says Amazon’s Dave Clark at the company’s massive fulfillment center in Robbinsville, New Jersey.
In fact, this is the first year that consumers are doing more shopping on their mobile devices than their desktops.
Last year Black Friday in Britain was marred by long queues and brawls in stores.
Black Friday was defined by lower football in bricks and mortar stores, but it seems consumers made a shift towards e-commerce, with Experian’s £1.1 billion estimate in overall sales easily met.
“People scouting around for cheap deals may end up on scam websites”.
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Also, we’re just coming out of a disastrous third quarter earnings season for most of the major department stores, who blamed declining sales on everything from bad weather to the strong dollar.
