NEW YORK — Cyber Monday started as a gimmick to get people to shop at their desks on the first workday after Thanksgiving. But if something is promoted enough, it can take on a life of its own.
This year, stores swamped customers with online ads and e-mail deals, and sales could top $1 billion, making it bigger than any single online shopping day last year.
Online sales were already running 15 percent ahead of last year’s by 3 p.m. Monday, with the biggest shopping hours of the day still to come, according to IBM’s Coremetrics tracking service.
“The numbers are really strong,” said the service’s chief strategy officer, John Squire, who added that he expects Cyber Monday to be the biggest online shopping day of the season.
Strong online sales contributed to what retailers said was a good Thanksgiving weekend.
A National Retail Federation survey showed that 212 million shoppers visited stores and websites over the weekend, up from 195 million last year. Average expenditures per person rose to $365, compared with last year’s $343.
In Colorado, sales statistics were not available, but anecdotal reports were upbeat.
“It was really a positive weekend for us,” said Shannon Butler, a spokeswoman for the Colorado Retail Council. “I don’t think we’re totally out of the recession, but it appeared that people were more willing to go out and buy fun things.”
The Colorado Retail Council has forecast that statewide holiday spending will increase 2 percent this year from 2009 levels.
The Monday after Thanksgiving was dubbed Cyber Monday by the National Retail Federation trade group in 2005 to describe the unofficial kickoff to the online shopping season. The idea was that people returning to work after the long weekend would shop at their desks.
It never really was the busiest online shopping day of the year. But like any good marketing angle, it spawned imitation. Nearly 90 percent of U.S. retailers offered some kind of Cyber Monday promotion this year, targeting shoppers who didn’t want to venture out at 4 a.m. for those in-store deals. In 2007, 72 percent offered a Cyber Monday promotion.
Denver Post staff writer Steve Raabe contributed to this report.
