Amid the debate over whether Cyber Monday — a term coined by trade group Shop.org for the Monday after Thanksgiving — really is the Internet’s answer to Black Friday or just a bunch of hype, comes a press release from DoubleClick claiming there are four Cyber Mondays.
“The four Cyber Mondays that occur between Thanksgiving and Christmas are the peak volume days during the holiday online shopping season,” the release published yesterday said. “Cyber Monday 2 and Cyber Monday 3 consistently generate the highest volumes.”
As a result, according to DoubleClick, Dec. 5 and Dec. 12 are likely to be the largest sales-volume days of the 2005 holiday season.
Since Christmas falls on a Sunday this year, online merchants could see extra heavy sales on Cyber Monday 4, or Dec. 19, because they’ll still be able to guarantee delivery before the holiday, DoubleClick said.
In other findings in DoubleClick’s study of more than 300 marketers’ holiday activity, online sales increased 33% on Black Friday this year compared to Black Friday 2004.
Sales on “Cyber Monday 1,” according to DoubleClick, were up 39% compared to the comparable Monday in 2004. Sales on “Cyber Monday 2” were up 35% compared to last year, the company said.
Trade group Shop.org coined the term “Cyber Monday” as online merchants’ version of Black Friday. As a result, Cyber Monday received a lot of press coverage from reporters looking for a fresh angle on holiday shopping.
However, the Monday after Thanksgiving is not the biggest online holiday shopping day of the year and the phrase Cyber Monday is increasingly being seen as based more on hype than actual shopping activity.
The Friday after Thanksgiving is called Black Friday because according to conventional wisdom, it is when offline retailers’ books go from red to black.
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