By Benecia Beyer
"Cyber Monday," the term coined for the Monday after Thanksgiving, comes on the heels of the busy "Black Friday" shopping day when many brick-and-mortar retailers begin turning a profit. The good news for online shoppers this year, is that "Cyber Monday" is becoming the Web shopping equivalent to "Black Friday" when retailers launch major sales and discounts to drive traffic, analysts said.
According to comScore Networks, a leader in measuring the digital age, during the first 24 days of November this year, total online retail spending reached $8.31 billion, marking a 23 percent increase versus the corresponding days in 2005. "Black Friday" saw particularly high online sales with $434 million spent, up 42 percent versus last year.
Heavy traffic to leading retailers' Web sites - which in the case of Walmart.com resulted in an outage at the site - comScore found high levels of online retail spending on Black Friday (there is a special website devoted to what's available on Black Friday) this year. "With 42 percent growth versus the same day last year, it's clear that many consumers opted for the convenience and sanity of shopping from home in order to avoid mayhem at the malls and to take advantage of the extremely attractive deals being offered online."
Personally -- I participated in neither. I'm waiting for the next new coined phrase -- "Tax Tuesday" or maybe "W-2 Wednesday" !
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