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New York - After a busy holiday weekend in shopping malls, millions of Americans are expected to log on and keep buying on the day called Cyber Monday.
The Monday after the Thanksgiving holiday has been the biggest online shopping day of the year since 2010. The day could take on added importance after a Thanksgiving weekend that saw fewer shoppers and lower spending than last year, according to some estimates.
Retailers have been pushing deals all month and particularly the past week, hoping to spur customers to spend. That may have taken away some spending from Thanksgiving weekend.
Research firm comScore expects people to spend about $2.5bn on Cyber Monday.
There's reason to think a lot of dollars are migrating online.
PayPal said its global mobile payment volume jumped 47% on Thanksgiving Day compared with last year. Wal-Mart said it had more than 500 million page views on Thanksgiving, and eBay says it sold 2 000 iPad Air 2 tablets for $399 at a rate of one a second.
The name "Cyber Monday" was coined in 2005 by the National Retail Federation's online arm, Shop.org, to encourage people to shop online. The name was also a nod to online shopping being done at work, where faster connections made it easier to browse, less of a factor now.
Cyber Monday comes after a weekend that saw 5.3% fewer shoppers and 11% less spending, according to estimates by the National Retail Federation.
"Online is nowhere near its maturity, so Cyber Monday should be big, with a lot of strength in the days leading up to it," Forester Research analyst Sucharita Mulpuru said. "More consumers are spending more shopping dollars online."
She expects two spikes in online shopping: one during the long Thanksgiving weekend, including Cyber Monday, and one later in December when shipping deadlines to get items by Christmas start to hit.
Research firm comScore expects online sales to rise 16% to $61bn during the November and December shopping season, up 16% from last year. ComScore tracks US online sales based on observed behaviour of a representative US consumer panel of 2 million web users.
The National Retail Federation has forecast overall holiday sales will increase 4.1% to $616.9bn in 2014.
