Cyber Monday

Cyber Monday is a marketing term for the Monday after Thanksgiving in the United States, to encourage e-commerce and online shopping. It is closely related to Black Friday, which occurs three days before. The date falls between November 26 and December 2, depending on the year.

Ellen Davis of the National Retail Federation coined the term "Cyber Monday" in a press release on November 28, 2005. Since its inception, it has become a marketing term used by online retailers around the world.

In 2017, Cyber Monday online sales grew to a record of $6.59 billion, compared with $2.98 billion in 2015 and $2.65 billion in 2014. However, the average order value was $128, down slightly from 2014's $160. The Cyber Monday on November 30, 2020 (the first during the COVID-19 pandemic) was the biggest online shopping day in US history, with a total of $10.7 billion in online spending.

History

The amount of shopping done online increased dramatically in the late 1990s and early 2000s. In 2003, Tony Valado, who worked for 1800flowers.com, proposed an online shopping holiday called "White Wednesday" to be the day before Thanksgiving. The term "Cyber Monday" was coined by Ellen Davis and was first used within the e-commerce community during the 2005 holiday season. According to Scott Silverman, the head of Shop.org, the term was based on 2004 research showing that "one of the biggest online shopping days of the year" was the Monday after Thanksgiving (12th-biggest day historically). In late November 2005, The New York Times reported: "The name Cyber Monday grew out of the observation that millions of otherwise productive working Americans, fresh off a Thanksgiving weekend of window shopping, were returning to high-speed Internet connections at work Monday and buying what they liked."