The Skinny: A Not So Cyber Monday?
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December 18, 2006 10:01 AM The Skinny Today: Cyber Monday was not really the biggest online shopping day of the year. Again. Plus, drama for the Episcopal Church, pharma news and welcome to the Pentagon, Robert Gates. The Skinny is Hillary Profita's take on the top of the news and the best of the Web.
November 27, 2006 11:42 AM 
If the hype is to be believed, no one is reading Public Eye today. Or CBSNews.com. Or any news site, really. Nope, they're too busy shopping online. Today, after all, is "Cyber Monday," as we've repeatedly been informed by the press, the cyber-sibling to "Black Friday" which marks the biggest online shopping day of the year. We discussed the phenomenon last year, following a Trish Regan report speculating that "Cyber Monday" “could be one of the busiest days for Web retailers ever recorded.”
There's just one problem, as we noted last November: "Cyber Monday," as CNET has also pointed out, is a load of hooey. "The biggest online holiday shopping day is not, as it turns out, the Monday after Thanksgiving," notes Candace Lombardi. Last year, the biggest online shopping day was December 5th, or maybe December 12th. One thing is certain: It wasn't the first Monday after thanksgiving. So why the hype?
You guessed it: Marketing. As Businessweek pointed out last year, "Shop.org, an association for retailers that sell online, dreamed up the term just days before putting out a Nov. 21 [2005] press release touting Cyber Monday as "one of the biggest online shopping days of the year."
Here's more:
Monday, Monday, Can't Trust That Day
(AP)
There's just one problem, as we noted last November: "Cyber Monday," as CNET has also pointed out, is a load of hooey. "The biggest online holiday shopping day is not, as it turns out, the Monday after Thanksgiving," notes Candace Lombardi. Last year, the biggest online shopping day was December 5th, or maybe December 12th. One thing is certain: It wasn't the first Monday after thanksgiving. So why the hype?
You guessed it: Marketing. As Businessweek pointed out last year, "Shop.org, an association for retailers that sell online, dreamed up the term just days before putting out a Nov. 21 [2005] press release touting Cyber Monday as "one of the biggest online shopping days of the year."
Here's more:
November 29, 2005 3:18 PM
Celebrating "Cyber Monday"
If you turned on the television, checked a news Web site or read a newspaper in the past few days, you would have been introduced to a new term in the world of holiday marketing hype – “Black Friday” has begotten “Cyber Monday.”
On last night’s “Evening News,” correspondent Trish Regan noted in a piece about holiday shopping that Cyber Monday “could be one of the busiest days for Web retailers ever recorded.” “Today is expected to be one of the busiest days of the year for shopping online,” ABC’s “World News Tonight” anchor Elizabeth Vargas said last night as she introduced Dan Harris’ piece on secure online shopping. “Cyber Monday, the Monday after Thanksgiving, is quickly becoming one of the biggest online shopping days of the year,” wrote CNNMoney.com. USA Today wrote on Sunday that “The post-holiday Monday has become a big event for online retailers, who've nicknamed it ‘Cyber Monday.’ Some 43% plan promotions today to fuel the trend.”
And if you were wondering where exactly the fuel for this trend came from, Robert Hof at Businessweek Online has an answer for you:
On last night’s “Evening News,” correspondent Trish Regan noted in a piece about holiday shopping that Cyber Monday “could be one of the busiest days for Web retailers ever recorded.” “Today is expected to be one of the busiest days of the year for shopping online,” ABC’s “World News Tonight” anchor Elizabeth Vargas said last night as she introduced Dan Harris’ piece on secure online shopping. “Cyber Monday, the Monday after Thanksgiving, is quickly becoming one of the biggest online shopping days of the year,” wrote CNNMoney.com. USA Today wrote on Sunday that “The post-holiday Monday has become a big event for online retailers, who've nicknamed it ‘Cyber Monday.’ Some 43% plan promotions today to fuel the trend.”
And if you were wondering where exactly the fuel for this trend came from, Robert Hof at Businessweek Online has an answer for you:
So what's up with this Cyber Monday idea? A little bit of reality and a whole lot of savvy marketing. It turns out that Shop.org, an association for retailers that sell online, dreamed up the term just days before putting out a Nov. 21 press release touting Cyber Monday as "one of the biggest online shopping days of the year."Indeed, Hof argues that historically, online retail sales don’t drastically pick up on the Monday following Thanksgiving:
The idea was born when a few people at the organization were brainstorming about how to promote online shopping, says Shop.org Executive Director Scott Silverman, who answered his phone, "Happy Cyber Monday." They quickly discarded suggestions such as Black Monday (too much like Black Friday), Blue Monday (not very cheery), and Green Monday (too environmentalist), and settled on Cyber Monday. "It's not the biggest day," Silverman concedes. "But it was an opportunity to create some consumer excitement."
Contrary to what the recent blitz of media coverage implies, Cyber Monday isn't nearly the biggest online shopping or spending day of the year. It ranks only as the 12th-biggest day historically, according to market researcher ComScore Networks. It's not even the first big day of the season.
For most online retailers, the bigger spending day of the season to date was way back on Nov. 22, three days before Black Friday. What's more, most e-tailers say the season's top spending day comes much later, between around Dec. 5 and Dec. 15.
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