Maryland Business

By: Liz Farmer

With Cyber Monday coming up in less than two weeks, my inbox has started filling up with retail predictions, trends, spending forecasts — the works. But one release veered left where everyone else was going right: when “The Myth of Cyber Monday” popped up in my messages list I was immediately intrigued.

Compiled by Northern California-based Permuto Discoveries, the graphic (available here) outlines statistical reasons why Cyber Monday, billed as the busiest online shopping day of the year, is not and never has been the top dog of online shopping days.

The term Cyber Monday was originally coined in 2005 by Shop.org after a significant number of  retailers reported a sizable increase in online sales the Monday after Thanksgiving. Since then, sales have grown from $486 million on Cyber Monday in 2005 to $846 million last year.

But neither one of those days was the busiest online shopping day of the year, according to Permuto.

$556 million in online sales took place on Dec. 12, 2005 and $887 million in sales on Dec. 9 last year made those days the busiest online shopping days of their years.

But further on, the graphic notes Cyber Monday’s sales totals are getting closer to the top online day of the year. That could mean that consumers and retailers are buying (no pun intended) the hype anyway and creating a self fulfilling prophecy.

Last year, Cyber Monday was only about $41 million off from the true busiest online day of the year. Could this year be the year it actually lives up to its name?