Cyber Monday, A Myth?!

You probably noticed a lot of talk, this week, on the news about Cyber Monday, the internet's answer to Black Friday.  The rationale is that on Monday people returned to work, where they have high-speed internet connections, and thus do their shopping.  That makes sense, except for the fact that people generally have to work at work, and that there are a lot of people who have broadband at home (this is particularly true of the demographic that can spend their work hours lolling around online).  Well, turns out Cyber Monday isn't a big day at all, it's just the 12th biggest online-shopping day of the year.  The term Cyber Monday was just invented by marketers to, you know, drum up buzz!  (Found via Techdirt)

In other e-cyber-NET.com news, you'll be surprised to hear that WalMart.com had more visitors this week than Amazon (though not necessarily more sales) according to research firm Hitwise.  Take the numbers with a grain of salt, Hitwise is the company that declared GM's aggressive price cuts this summer a success, because it drew more young people to their website.

Comments

[Ed Kohler]

Sales and traffic don't necessarily correlate. In fact, the number of page views per visitor may go down during peak shopping periods because people know what they want just need to buy it. Less browsing.

I took at look at this Cyber Monday concept, and found it to be a great day for retail, but not the best of the year:

Does Cyber Monday Exist?

[Sandy Kory]

Some online buainesses do thrive on internet users in the workplace. One example is online payday loans, where many consumers don't have internet access at home but do at work. Think call center employees. Online payday loans are dead on the weekends but very active mon-fri 9-5.
The online payday loan space is an extreme case, but it is worth noting that workers "not working" do make up a large portion of business for many online companies.