Analyst Speak: Cyber Monday signals the start of the Christmas shopping spree

10 December 2009 | By Robin Goad

The term ‘Cyber Monday’ was invented in the US, referring to the Monday after Black Friday, the first Friday after Thanksgiving which is generally seen as the start of the Christmas shopping season. But Cyber Monday has also become a significant date in the UK, coinciding with the busiest few days for online retailers.

Whereas UK high streets and shopping centres are busiest towards the end of December, visits to online retailers typically peak at the start of the month. There are two main reasons for this: goods take a while to be delivered when ordered online, and a lot of people browse and search online before hitting the shops to actually purchase. Last year Cyber Monday fell on 1 December and online visits to retail websites in the UK peaked the day before.

In fact, the pre-Christmas peak in visits has occurred on the Sunday before Cyber Monday for the last couple of years. It seems this will be the case again this year, with Sunday 29 November the busiest day for online retailers so far.

So who were the big winners this Cyber Sunday and Monday? Department stores, fashion, house & garden and sport & fitness were all significantly up on last year, with strong performers including Amazon UK, Argos, Marks & Spencer, Tesco Direct and Next.

It’s interesting that a lot of the best performers are familiar high street names, because multi-channel and online retailers experience different peaks in traffic at Christmas. This year visits to high street retailers peaked on the Sunday before Cyber Monday, but the online-only players peaked on the Monday. Online-only retailers don’t have the luxury of sending their customers to purchase in store, so they need to close sales on the site and market their delivery services more effectively.

The recession may be coming to and end, but British consumers remain hungry for a bargain.

Have your say

Please do not complete the following form field for security reasons.

Name

E-mail

Comment

Post as

Anonymously

Display name

I have read and agree to the terms and conditions