Cyber Monday

Credits: Pixabay

Cyber Monday is a marketing term for the Monday after Black Friday, the Friday following Thanksgiving in the United States, created by companies to persuade people to shop online. The term made its debut on November 28, 2005 in a Shop.org press release entitled "'Cyber Monday' quickly becoming one of the biggest online shopping days of the year". 

In 2006, Shop.org announced that it launched the CyberMonday.com portal, a one-stop shop for Cyber Monday deals. Cyber Monday has become an international marketing term used by online retailers in Canada, the United Kingdom, Portugal, Germany, France, Australia, New Zealand and Chile.

In late November 2005, the New York Times reported that "The name Cyber Monday grew out of the observation that millions of otherwise productive working Americans, fresh off a Thanksgiving weekend of window shopping, were returning to high-speed Internet connections at work Monday and buying what they liked."

Cyber Monday came to Canada in 2008. The National Post featured an article, in the November 25, 2010 edition, stating that the parity of the Canadian dollar with the US dollar caused many Canadian retailers to have Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales of their own. By 2011, around 80% of online retailers in Canada were participating in Cyber Monday.

Credits: All Things

According to The Guardian, UK online retailers are now referring to "Cyber Monday" as the busiest internet shopping day of the year that commonly falls on the same day as the US Cyber Monday.

Amazon.de announced that it brought Cyber Monday to Germany in 2010.

In Portugal, the term Cyber Monday was first used in 2009.

Inspired by the US phenomenon, the term Cyber Monday was first used in France in 2008.

The first Cyber Monday Sale in New Zealand was held on 29 November 2010. It lasted for five days, from Monday to Friday.

Chile's first Cyber Monday took place on 28 November 2011. The companies participating in the event are those part of the Santiago Chamber of Commerce's Electronic Commerce Committee.

On 20 November 2012, Australian online retailers held a similar event for the first time dubbed Click Frenzy; many websites immediately crashed, went offline or had major server issues including the Click Frenzy promotion website.

Source: CyberMonday.com & Wikipedia (abridged and adapted)