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Written by
Nicholas Gisonna
Fact-checked by
The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Cyber Monday
- Related Topics:
- e-commerce
- Black Friday
- November
- December
- Monday
Cyber Monday, shopping holiday promoted by retailers as a day of savings and bargains for online customers. Cyber Monday falls on the Monday after Thanksgiving and its counterpart sales day, Black Friday. Cyber Monday has become a lucrative day for retail sales in the United States.
The term Cyber Monday was first coined by the National Retail Federation in 2005 when they noticed that people would continue their holiday shopping online while at work on the Monday after Thanksgiving, because, at that time, many people had a faster Internet connection at work than at home. Cyber Monday is often associated with Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, when retailers promote doorbuster deals and extreme savings available only that day. Similar to Cyber Monday, Black Friday was conceived by companies as a way to drive sales during the holiday season between November and December in the lead-up to Christmas. While consumers associate Black Friday with sales at brick-and-mortar stores, Cyber Monday is associated with online shopping discounts.
For decades Black Friday has been a landmark sales event and has drawn larger and larger groups of consumers to stores. The resulting long lines and overcrowded stores sometimes have led to heightened tensions among shoppers, with numerous news reports of injuries and violence on that day becoming a norm. Retail workers have also repeatedly been endangered by the growing crowds of customers, such as the tragic incident in 2008 in which a Walmart employee was trampled to death when nearly 2,000 shoppers stampeded into a store as it opened early on Black Friday.
The challenges associated with chaotic crowds on Black Friday proved to be an advantage to Cyber Monday, as consumers began choosing to wait to take advantage of promotions online rather than fighting crowds in malls and stores. It has also been successful because many people return to work after the Thanksgiving holiday weekend. They are thus unable to venture out to stores, but they can access holiday sales online. Cyber Monday also enjoyed increased growth when online shopping grew in popularity during the COVID-19 pandemic.
While Cyber Monday has its origins in the United States, it has also been adopted internationally as a way to increase purchasing. Cyber Monday has grown in popularity in places such as Canada, the United Kingdom, and Japan despite the fact that they do not celebrate the American Thanksgiving holiday.
