The Rise of Cyber Monday

Since the term was first coined back in 2005, Cyber Monday has been drawing attention. For those unfamiliar, Cyber Monday pertains to the Monday after Thanksgiving when employees go back to work and shop online during “break time”. Many have dismissed Cyber Monday as a marketing buzz word with no real factual standing; which will ultimately fade away; I disagree. Professional marketers for large retail have managed to co-opt almost every major holiday and turn it into a sales event and in my opinion Cyber Monday is just an extension of Black Friday, another day for retailers to offer deep discounts and great bargains. Give it a few more years and Cyber Monday will stick.

As an employer however; I don’t like the idea of marketing to the workforce to spend their working hours shopping online. I’d like to see Cyber Monday change to Cyber Saturday, although it would be even better if the word Cyber was replaced with a more telling term such as eComm Saturday. Cyber is just far to geeky for me. Strike while the iron is hot and offer your online discounts the day after the brick-and-mortar offered their Friday discounts, or pick a day when online sales is actually at it’s peak for the year. In 2005, that was Tuesday, December 13th. I’m still trying to determine the busiest day in 2006, but I haven’t been able to pin that down just yet.

Anyhow, enjoy your Cyber Monday and it you find a nice discount on a 47″ Sharp HD LCD, let me know.