Happy Cyber Monday! Oh wait, sorry. It’s Wednesday, you say? It’s all a little confusing considering there were still Cyber Monday-branded sales floating around two days later.

That onslaught of deals, deals, deals — personally, I find it kind of tiring. But does that matter for retailers, as long as it still gets us to spend with the pervasive message of “Get it before it’s gone”?

I got an email from a clothing brand this morning. “Last call! Up to 50% off! Really ends tonight!”

But I wouldn’t be surprised if the deal doesn’t really end tonight. The whole “Buy now, or else” thing feels like the boy who cried wolf. 

Sucharita Kodali, a retail analyst at Forrester, said this increasingly anxious messaging comes from an anxious place. “Retailers this year, if anything, I think they felt more pressure,” Kodali said.

Pressure because consumers are still feeling shaky about the economy. “And this year, it’s an unusual Christmas because Thanksgiving was so late,” Kodali said.

In any case, the urgent messaging is working. Between Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday, Americans spent more than $41 billion online, up 8.2% from last year, according to Adobe Analytics. Record sales, even though Black Friday deals started, like, a month ago.

“The words are taking on new meanings,” said Jie Zhang, a marketing professor at the University of Maryland. Zhang said Black Friday is now just a proxy for “Big sale.” 

Thing is, that message could begin to water down the effectiveness of the sales season itself and train consumers to hunt.

“So, shoppers are becoming smarter, and they have more options to exercise their spending power,” Zhang said.

More options because stuff is on sale all the time. And that raises the bar for good deals, said Aaron Wilson, who leads the retail practice at Boston Consulting Group. 

“What we’re seeing is kind of a magical number around 30% discount,” Wilson said.

Less than that, and shoppers might not splurge. Which has fed into this frenzy of Black Friday and Cyber Monday all season, making the actual occasions less precious.

“That’s essentially what I’ve discovered is I was like holding off on buying, like, place mats, and I was like ‘These prices are no better than they were three weeks ago,'” Kodali said.

Even if you do miss a sale, there’s always one around the corner, as close as New Year’s Day.