Americans are expected to spend $2.5 billion in online shopping during this year's Cyber Monday.
The National Retail Foundation estimates 5 percent fewer shoppers showing up at the country's retail stores on Black Friday and spending 11 percent less on goods for themselves and gifts for their loved ones. However, research firm comScore, which predicts American buying behavior based on a panel of 2 million shoppers, believes buyers will make up for the drop in Black Friday sales by spending more online this Monday and the coming days than they did in previous years.
"Online is nowhere near its maturity, so Cyber Monday should be big, with a lot of strength in the days leading up to it," says Sucharita Mulpuru, analyst at Forrester Research.
Strong online sales are likely bolstered by the fact that Cyber Monday has been stretched out to cover not just Monday, but also the days leading up to Dec. 1 and several days after that. Amazon, for instance, has been offering special promos since Friday, Nov. 21, and has been adding new deals via its mobile app for as often as every 10 minutes until Friday this week. Amazon's deals include a 40-inch high-definition LED TV from Sony and Samsung, a $149 Acer Chromebook and a Nest Learning Thermostat for $199.
Cyber Monday isn't just limited to online stores anymore. Big-box retailers Walmart and Target are running their own week-long promo, appropriately calling it Cyber Week instead of Cyber Monday. Walmart is promising as many as 500 new online deals every day, two times more than 250 daily promos it offered last year. It is also allowing shoppers to pick up their online orders from the physical store on the same day. Target, on the other hand, is offering deep discounts on a hundred thousand items, such as a $225 KitchenAid stand mixer and a "buy one, get one 50 percent off" on Star Wars toys.
Figures from Thanksgiving Thursday also support the increasing popularity of online shopping, particularly on mobile. PayPal says global mobile payments made on Nov. 27 was higher by 47 percent than last year, while Walmart says its online website saw 500 million more views than last year's Thanksgiving. eBay also says it sold 2,000 iPads worth $399 at a rate of one per second.
comScore estimates that total sales made online will rise by 16 percent to $61 billion through the months of November to December, although the National Retail Foundation predicts that 52 percent of shoppers will buy something on Cyber Monday. That's 2 percent less than last year's 54 percent. The retail group also believes that total physical and online sales made during this year's holiday shopping season will rise by 4.1 percent to $616.9 billion.
