Cyber Monday? That’s the Same Week as Pink-Slip Tuesday and Foreclosure Friday, Isn’t It?
by John Paczkowski
Posted on December 1, 2008 at 5:40 AM PT
With online spending growth at its lowest rate in seven years, this holiday season is likely to be the worst for e-commerce since the concept was first dreamt up. Which means that Cyber Monday, the symbolic start of the online holiday shopping season, may prove to be quite a bit less than the orgy of consumer spending for which retailers have been hoping.
Often touted as the biggest online shopping day of the year, Cyber Monday has never managed to live up to the expectations of the retail association that created it back in 2005. It ranked ninth among the heaviest online shopping days in 2007, and it’s clearly not going to do much better this year, given the prevailing economic climate. Sure, shoppers spent $534 million on Black Friday, up one percent from last year. But for the holiday season-to-date, they spent four percent less.
Said Global Hunter Securities analyst Richard Hastings, “We expect Cyber Monday to be relatively weak, since it’s very credit card sensitive. We’re hearing consistent reports of more use of cash and debit cards in stores. That could weigh on Cyber Monday.”
