The changing face of Cyber Monday
In the last few years, the Monday after Thanksgiving has become known as the busiest online shopping day of the year. But even though the concept is still a relatively new one, the face of Cyber Monday is already changing.
The term was coined in the olden days of 2005, back before smartphones, tablets, or super fast Internet connections at home. Millions of Americans would return from their Thanksgiving weekends to high-speed Internet at work and get busy shopping.
Oh how time flies. Mia Shernoff, executive vice president at Chase Paymentech, which tracks consumer spending says today, with phones, tablets and broadband in the home, “consumers don’t have to rely on going to the office to do their shopping.”
But just because we don’t have to shop online at work today, doesn’t mean we won’t. 129 million Americans plan to buy online today, up six million from last year, according to a recent survey from the National Retail Federation.
Sucharita Mulpuru, a retail analyst at the market research company Forrester, says Cyber Monday gets bigger every year “because retailers seem to be offering more generous discounts, pushing bigger and bigger deals on these days.”
And in case you haven’t had enough, get ready tomorrow, for the newly coined Mobile Tuesday.
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