Black Friday has a new — and growing — counterpart when it comes to good deals and kicking off holiday sales: Cyber Monday. In a growing trend, more shoppers are turning to their computers the Monday after Thanksgiving, enough for online retailers to give the day a name.

The term Cyber Monday surfaced in 2005, but the trend has been on the radar for the past five years, said Ellen Davis, senior director of strategic communications with the National Retail Federation.

“Every year on the Monday after Thanksgiving, traffic and sales online would spike,” she said, adding at first the organization wondered if that surge was just an anomaly.

It wasn’t. The trend continued. Davis attributes it to people who don’t feel like braving the crowds the weekend of Black Friday. Or, she said, maybe the trend is driven by people whose shopping time was limited, or who could find the item they wanted or the color they desired before it sold out in retail stores.

“This is one of those trends that consumers started and retailers are responding too,” Davis said. “Consumers know it’s a good day to shop online and look for deals.”

Cyber Monday is a way for online retailers to make a splash, Davis said, and numerous Web sites now target online deals for that day.

Special incentives, such as free shipping, as well as comparable pricing and growing comfort with ordering items online helps keep online holiday sales growing. So too is the increasingly available convenience of being able to order items online and pick them up in local stores.

The phenomenon of Cyber Monday led www.shop.org, a division of the retail federation, to launch www.cybermonday.com in 2006. It was the site of $2 million in transactions on Cyber Monday last year, and this year will feature more than 500 retailers.

Consumers ranked convenience, avoiding crowds and free shipping as their top reasons why they shop online, according to an annual eHoliday survey conducted by shop.org and Biz Rate Research.

More than 70 percent of consumers surveyed said they would make a purchase online, and more than 62 percent said they would do at least half — if not all — of their holiday shopping online.

This year, more than half of online retailers expect sales to grow 30 percent or more, with 20 percent expecting “hyper-growth,” or sales increases of 75 percent or more, said Scott Silverman, executive director of Shop.org.

“Retailers understand a sale is a sale is a sale,” he said, adding traditional retailers don’t see the Internet as impinging on sales.

One-third of online retailers surveyed said they plan to offer discounts by Cyber Monday, deals that include online-only sales, repeat buyer discounts and “buy one, get one free” offers.

When it comes to discounts, free shipping has become the No. 1 incentive, Silverman said, with some people passing up other discounts to get free shipping.

“It really has become the cost of doing business for our retailers,” he said.

Davis said that 30 percent of what’s purchased this holiday season is going to be influenced by the Internet, whether it’s comparison shopping or seeking out prices.

“Now with the Internet, consumers are really able to look for specifics,” Davis said.

By: Jennifer Thomas From: www.centredaily.com

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