What Is Cyber Monday? History and Milestones

What Is Cyber Monday?

Cyber Monday is an e-commerce term referring to the Monday following the U.S. Thanksgiving weekend. Online retailers usually offer special promotions, discounts, and sales on this day as brick-and-mortar stores do on Black Friday.

Traditional retailers generally offer exclusive, website-only deals on Cyber Monday. The result suggests to some that Black Friday and Cyber Monday have merged into a combination of in-store-and-online shopping experiences that blur the distinction between the two days.

Understanding Cyber Monday

Thanksgiving marks the beginning of the holiday shopping season in the United States. The season is marked by Black Friday, which occurs the day after Thanksgiving. Black Friday tends to be the busiest single shopping day of the year. Another key day for retailers is Cyber Monday which falls on the Monday right after the Thanksgiving holiday.

The term Cyber Monday was coined in 2005 by Shop.org, the online arm of the National Retail Federation (NRF). It was created as a way to encourage consumers to shop online. The trade association noted that web purchases had often spiked on the Monday after Thanksgiving in prior years. Online retailers have been offering deep discounts to consumers since its inception.

Traditional brick-and-mortar retailers also joined the event, devoting increasing amounts of time and energy to online sales to compete with each other as well as with their cyber rivals. And it isn't uncommon for both online and traditional retailers to begin offering sales well before the Thanksgiving holiday.

Consumers relish Cyber Monday for several reasons. Many people don't want to spend time away from family during the holiday just to get a bargain, while others don't want to wait in the long lines that form on Black Friday. Cyber Monday provides consumers with a convenient, hassle-free way to shop and cash in on some great deals and it makes shopping online even more attractive with most retailers now offering free shipping as an incentive.

History of Cyber Monday

Cyber Monday was created by the NRF's Shop.org in 2005 when it noted that consumers generally flocked online after Thanksgiving to do their shopping. There were a few different theories as to why this was so.

One theory suggested that people saw items in stores and shopping malls over the weekend but waited until Monday to buy them at work where they had computers with faster internet connections.

Another theory attributed the phenomenon to the unpleasant experiences brought on by the Thanksgiving weekend. You could skip the family feast, camp out in the parking lot of your favorite store, and fight your way through a mob of bargain hunters at the break of dawn on Black Friday if you were looking to land some phenomenal bargains. Or you could roll out of bed on Monday morning, pour yourself a cup of coffee, and browse the web for rock-bottom prices.

Cyber Monday Milestones

Cyber Monday became designated as the day for deals and discounts with its official naming, reinforcing its popularity. There was a huge impact almost immediately. Some of the key milestones associated with Cyber Monday include:

• 2005: Sales were $484 million. That number exceeded the $1 billion mark by 2010.
• 2011: CNBC reported for the first time that Black Friday and Cyber Monday merged into a single Thanksgiving shopping weekend.
• 2016: Most major retailers extended sales from a single Cyber Monday to a full Cyber Week, offering a revolving menu of deals over several days. Amazon led that movement followed by Kohl's, which extended its Cyber sale into December.
• 2019: Cyber Monday sales reached $9.4 billion. Adobe Analytics predicted sales of $9.2 billion but this figure increased due to late-night shoppers grabbing deals online.
• 2022: Many shoppers turned to online commerce amidst COVID-19. Cyber Monday sales topped more than $11 billion in 2022.
• 2023: Cyber Monday once again broke an online spending record, topping $12.4 billion.
• 2024: Cyber Monday will occur on December 2, 2024.

Cyber Monday During COVID-19

More consumers shopped online during Thanksgiving weekend than ever before when the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020 even though Black Friday is the busiest shopping day of the year. Black Friday digital spending hit $9 billion and Cyber Monday spending reached nearly $10 billion.

As many as 30% of shoppers said they planned to shop Cyber Monday sales, compared to the 24% who planned to shop on Black Friday. The pandemic likely had a lot to do with this. Black Friday returned to primacy, including in online sales, in 2021 and 2022.

Black Friday saw 87.2 million shoppers in 2022, followed by 77 million more on Cyber Monday, according to the NRF. Cyber Monday sales reached $11.3 billion, according to Adobe Analytics. In 2023, Cyber Monday grew 9.6% year-over-year and topped over $12 billion in 2023. Cyber Week was up 7.8% from 2022 to 2023.

Cyber Monday Goes Global

Cyber Monday occurred solely in the United States in 2005 but the event has since become an international marketing term. As many as 28 countries participate in Cyber Monday with awareness highest in the U.K. at 89%. Other top countries based on their awareness levels include Germany (86%), Spain (85%), Italy (80%), Netherlands (70%), Sweden (69%), and Denmark (52%).

All this has led major U.S. retailers to build e-commerce websites in the language of the target audience, a move designed to build a loyal customer base in other countries. Events like Black Friday and Cyber Monday provide retailers with opportunities to reach new markets and grow globally. This also involves analysis of buying trends to determine what appeals to shoppers in other countries and how best to meet demand.

Beyond Cyber Monday

The Black Friday-Cyber Monday mania has sparked other days dedicated to specific industries.

• Small Business Saturday falls on the day after Black Friday. This is generally the last Saturday in November. This day was launched in 2010 as a way to pull consumers away from large, big-box retailers and draw them to shop with local small businesses.
• Giving Tuesday falls on the Tuesday after Cyber Monday. This day was first introduced to consumers in 2012 as a way to promote charitable donations during the holiday season and to counter the commercialization and consumer culture of the Thanksgiving season. Many large corporations, such as Google, Meta (formerly Facebook), and UNICEF have since become partners for Giving Tuesday, with pledges to match donations made by employees and the general public.
• Green Monday was reportedly created in 2007 by eBay and is commonly known as the second Cyber Monday because of its focus on online shopping. More specifically, it represents the boost in last-minute shopping for the holiday season. It occurs on the second Monday of December.

The Bottom Line

Thanksgiving is a national holiday in the United States that falls on the fourth Thursday of November each year. Most people take the day to spend time with family and give thanks.

But the day also marks the beginning of the holiday shopping season with Black Friday and Cyber Monday, which are two of the biggest days for retailers. Cyber Monday falls on the Monday after Thanksgiving and allows consumers to take advantage of deep discounts and bargains offered by businesses online.

Correction–April 15, 2024: This article previously misstated Cyber Monday 2022 sales as $11 million. Sales reached $11 billion that year.