Cyber Monday? Cyber Weekend? Cyber Week? It's the busiest ecommerce time of the year

Cyber Monday is Nov. 29, but the emails started way sooner.

Sale alerts from my favorite brands started flooding my inbox before I had even torn off the Oct. 31 page of my "Doug the Pug" calendar. As November continued, the sheer volume of holiday promotional emails I received started to get a bit ridiculous.

There was the "why wait" for Black Friday message from Macy's on Nov. 17, offering 20-75% off and "exclusive" early access because apparently, I'm special. On Nov. 23, Bath & Body Works sent a message with the subject line "look what came early," using the side eye emoji for emphasis and extra allure. 

And on Sunday, I got an email from one of my favorite candle companies. The subject line was, "IT'S ALMOST OVER" - referring to a 20% off sale - and the text was followed by four different sad face emojis. One was a person crying and the last one was a cat crying. Yup, they really went there with the cat. 

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These emails all came before Cyber Monday, traditionally the biggest online shopping day of the year. In 2021, Adobe Analytics is predicting Cyber Monday sales in the range of $10.2-$11.3 billion.

But as my email account indicates, these so-called "Cyber Monday" deals have actually been going on for awhile, and a lot of them will probably also be around after it's over. I was still getting emails promoting "Black Friday" deals while writing this on Monday. 

From 'Cyber Monday' to 'Cyber Weekend'

"Cyber Monday is not the only online shopping day that it was five to 10 years ago," Anand Krishnamoorthy, associate professor of marketing at University of Central Florida, said. "It might be better to look at the entire weekend. Instead of calling it Cyber Monday, we should be calling it 'Cyber Weekend.'" 

The term "Cyber Monday" was coined in 2005 by the National Retail Federation after retailers noticed a pop in online sales the Monday after Thanksgiving. It's been 16 years, and I would argue the holiday is due for a name change. 

The word "cyber" on its own evokes memories of dial-up internet connections, Y2K and AOL chat rooms. It doesn't really have any relevance to our current world, where we can walk our dogs and order on Amazon Prime in the same moment. 

This year, Adobe Analytics, which tracks ecommerce sales data for the holiday season, actually referred to the online shopping period of Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday as "Cyber Week." 

Despite strong sales predictions for "Cyber Week" as a whole, ecommerce sales were flat on Thanksgiving, and actually down on Black Friday this year for the first time ever, according to Adobe. 

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'If you don't buy now, you'll miss out on savings'

Thanksgiving Day online sales were $5.1 billion and Black Friday's totaled $8.9 billion, a slight dip from $9 billion in 2020. 

"For the first time ever, Black Friday saw a reversal of the growth trend of past years," Vivek Pandya, lead analyst at Adobe Digital Insights, said in a statement. "Shoppers are being strategic in their gift shopping, buying much earlier in the season and being flexible about when they shop to make sure they get the best deals.”  

Media reports of supply shortages, plus messages from retailers themselves, seem to have taught consumers to shop earlier this year. An all-time high of 61% of shoppers said they planned to start buying for the holidays by early November.

Carol Osborne, director of the advertising program at the University of South Florida, told me that she has observed more urgency in email marketing this year. Essentially the tone is "if you don't buy now, you'll miss out on savings." 

"I have noticed some of them saying, 'by the way, you better hurry up,'" Osborne said. "I think certain retailers are telling the truth on that, but are they, or are they using it to get people buying?" 

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Whatever their motivations, preliminary shopping data seems to indicate that the strategy worked. Hopefully retailers can deliver throughout the holiday season and keep the shelves stocked in their stores and warehouses.

In my email combing, I noticed that some of the best deals took place before Black Friday or Cyber Monday. This one brand that I really like, an eco-friendly clothing company, had 25% off the weekend of Nov. 19. On Cyber Monday, it was just 20%. 

Either one of those might be a discount, but the question is, do I need leggings, or do I just want them? Is 20% off a sale or a deal when I wasn't actually planning to buy anything in the first place? 

Most people would probably argue no, it isn't. But it's the most wonderful time of year for shopping. I suppose it's time to get in the spirit. 

Laura Finaldi, the Herald-Tribune’s retail and tourism reporter, can be reached at 941-361-4951 or lfinaldi@heraldtribune.com. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram @lauraefinaldi. Join her Sarasota-Manatee Retail News page on Facebook at facebook.com/groups/sarasotamanateeretail/.  

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