Prior to 2005, when the National Retail Federation (NRF) first used the term “Cyber Monday,” online shopping was flourishing.With the founding of Amazon in 1994, eBay in 1995, and Walmart’s website in 2000, consumers soon became used to placing products in virtual shopping carts as opposed to real ones. Nevertheless, e-commerce vendors felt excluded from the annual Black Friday sales increase that was assured for physical retailers.
As online purchasing grew, online-only companies like Amazon sought to take advantage of Thanksgiving weekend sales, according to Catherine Cullen, vice president of industry and consumer insights at the NRF. Online sales took over the Monday after Thanksgiving, setting it apart from Black Friday.
Since its inception, Cyber Monday has developed into the traditionally most lucrative day for online purchases each year. However, in recent years, businesses have prolonged their Black Friday offers to last for weeks and increased their online presence. By doing this, they have effectively combined Cyber Monday and Black Friday, leading many people to wonder if the two shopping holidays are still distinct.
I mapped out the history of Cyber Monday and asked experts about their expectations for 2024 to help you better understand this year’s Cyber Monday, which falls on December 2.
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Looking back at Cyber Mondays of years past
Even on Black Friday, which started off as an in-person shopping event, there have been indications for years that e-commerce is dominating the holiday retail sector. According to the NRF, Black Friday became the busiest online shopping day in 2019 for the first time ever, surpassing Cyber Monday. Since then, this has occurred annually, demonstrating that the idea of having one day for in-person shopping and another for internet purchasing is out of date. Whether consumers choose to shop in-store, online, or both, the five days between Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday are now known as the Cyber Five.
However, nothing prepared Cyber Monday for such unprecedented success as the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. Due to the forced closure of the majority of physical establishments, online purchasing skyrocketed. Additionally, retailers promoted online sales more than ever during the holiday season. Besides closing for in-store shopping on Thanksgiving Day, they also redesigned their Cyber Monday and Black Friday activities to last for weeks throughout November. According to Adobe, these initiatives resulted in $10.8 billion in customer spending on Cyber Monday 2020, which at the time was the largest online shopping day in American history.
Retailers have been extending discounts over several weeks and relying on internet sales during Cyber Monday and Black Friday since their breakthrough in 2020. However, according to Adobe, online sales on Cyber Monday and Black Friday dropped by little more than 1% each in 2021, marking the first time this has ever happened. According to experts, the decreases are caused by consumers spacing out their spending and taking advantage of early discounts rather than focusing their purchases on a few days.
Experts’ primary concern in 2022 was how early offers would affect Black Friday and Cyber Monday, particularly since Amazon launched its first October Prime Day earlier than usual, kicking off holiday shopping earlier than usual. However, sales for both events climbed steadily in 2022 and 2023, and 2021 was not repeated. According to Adobe, Cyber Monday 2022 will bring in around $11.3 billion in total sales, and Cyber Monday 2023 will bring in about $12.4 billion. The latter is the biggest online shopping day in American history.
According to Dr. Ross Steinman, a professor of consumer psychology at Widener University, Cyber Monday outperforms Black Friday in terms of sales, in part because businesses tailor their websites and applications to entice customers to check out. Many put clocks that count down the seconds till midnight to their homepages and promote Cyber Monday as the last day for customers to save money. According to Steinman, this gives the sale a gamified element and encourages customers to be competitive when looking for deals.
According to the NRF, consumer demand is to blame for the recent increase in retail sales, despite others blaming it on inflation. Record shopper turnout is credited as contributing to the great performance. 200.4 million Americans shopped in stores and online over the five days between Thanksgiving Day and Cyber Monday 2023, the most since the NRF began collecting this statistics in 2017. According to Steinman, weeks of sales have made shopping on Black Friday and Cyber Monday more convenient and stress-free than ever before. Additionally, as economic problems loom, consumers are generally hungry for savings chances.
What to expect during Cyber Monday 2024
Experts expect that Cyber Monday sales will continue to rise in 2024, making it the most lucrative day for e-commerce sellers during the Christmas season, just as they have in previous years.Adobeputs predicted $13.2 billion in Cyber Monday sales, a 6.1% increase from the previous year. Because consumers are eagerly embracing early offers, it anticipates that Thanksgiving Day and Black Friday sales will increase at a faster rate each year. If all goes according to plan, 2024 will be the largest internet shopping day in American history, but Cyber Monday still leads in terms of overall profits.
The extent to which mobile sales will surpass desktop sales is one of the developments in online shopping that experts are keeping a careful eye on this year. 51.8% of online sales during Cyber Week 2023 were made via a smartphone, up from 49.9% in 2022. Adobe predicts that percentage will rise even more this year. One major factor propelling the rise of the digital economy is the current consumer preference for purchasing on mobile devices as opposed to desktop and laptop computers. Experts are also keeping an eye on how influencers are affecting holiday sales so far this year. According to Adobe data, influencers encourage ten times as much shopping as social media as a whole.
The NRF projects that total 2024 holiday spending from November 1 to December 31 will be between $979.5 and $989 billion, representing a 2.5% to 3.5% rise year over year because to the high growth expected this season.
How Cyber Monday came to be
Cyber Monday occurs on the Monday following Black Friday and Thanksgiving. The term “Cyber Monday” was created by the NRF in 2005 and was first used in a press release that detailed a new trend that the association had noticed a few years earlier: Online traffic and revenue always increased on the Monday after Thanksgiving. The word was soon adopted by merchants and media outlets.
Cyber Monday, like Black Friday, was a reaction to customer behavior, according to Barbara Kahn, a marketing professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. In the 1990s and early 2000s, not everyone owned a computer or kept one at home like we do now, but when people went back to work on Monday after the holiday weekend, they had access to computers and the internet once more. According to Kahn, consumers at work had access to a fresh selection of goods they might not have discovered in physical stores by perusing online-only merchants for discounts. Cyber Monday discounts were held by retailers who have both physical shops and an online presence, allowing them to reach a wider audience than just Black Friday shoppers.
In addition to offering a fresh and varied selection of sales, Cyber Monday appealed to consumers because it provided a level of ease and flexibility that Black Friday did not, according to Kahn. On Cyber Monday, people were free to shop anytime they wanted. To put it briefly, you could get offers fast and from almost anyplace, which contributed to the uniqueness of the sale event.
According to Kahn, the initial justification for Cyber Monday is a little outdated given that the majority of consumers now have constant access to the internet via their phones, tablets, computers, and watches. However, its legacy endures. Cyber Monday created a brand-new kind of holiday sale that took place just online and extended the shopping weekend.
The blurred line between Black Friday and Cyber Monday
Cyber Monday and Black Friday used to be two different occasions, one for online shopping and the other for in-store shopping. Recently, however, they have bleed into each other. Due to several merchants offering bargains beginning in early November or even October, Black Friday is becoming longer every year. And Black Friday has been outpacing Cyber Monday in terms of number of online shoppers, although Cyber Monday historically grosses more revenue.
We still use the terms Black Friday and Cyber Monday, but it s evolved so far beyond that, says Cullen. Shopping is shopping regardless of what channel it s occurring on, which reflects a shift in consumer and retailer thinking. They re now shopping across multiple channels, depending on what s most convenient for them and their lifestyles.
This change in consumer and retailer thinking puts pressure on Cyber Monday sales to start earlier and end later. Today s shoppers expect early deals, so many retailers begin their Cyber Monday sales weeks in advance of the shopping event itself. Then, they extend the shopping holiday on the backend, too.
Some retailers with an online presence and brick-and-mortar stores differentiate between Black Friday and Cyber Monday by highlighting different deals. Others simply change the name of their sale from Black Friday to Cyber Monday as the week goes by without offering new deals. That s led some retail experts to see Cyber Monday as a continuation of Black Friday rather than its own unique shopping event, creating what experts call Black November to describe the month-long promotions leading up to the sale events.
Meet our experts
At NBC Select, we work with experts with specialized knowledge and authority based on relevant training and/or experience. We also ensure that all expert advice and recommendations are made independently and with no undisclosed financial conflicts of interest.
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Barbara Kahn
is a professor of marketing at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
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Katherine Cullen
is the vice president of industry and consumer insights at the National Retail Federation.
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Dr.
Ross Steinman
is a professor of consumer psychology at Widener University.
Why trust NBC Select?
I m areporterat NBC Select who has covered tentpole sales like Black Friday, Cyber Monday and Amazon Prime Day since 2020. For this article, I researched the history of Cyber Monday, spoke to three experts and referred to data from sources like the NRF and Adobe Analytics.
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