WELCOME TO CYBER MONDAY

The holiday shopping season has arrived with full force and the online retailers may be the biggest winners in the push for consumers. With online shopping growing in popularity, Cyber Monday has become a much anticipated shopping day for online consumers. A contrived day designed for online shopping, Cyber Monday was a clever marketing scheme that was born in 2005 to promote online retailers. The Monday following Black Friday finds many online retailers handing out discounts in the same fashion that consumers may find on Black Friday. Shoppers may be afforded free shipping for their orders, as well as featured items at seriously discounted prices. Big Box retailers have cashed in on the internet market and often extend Black Friday specials to the Cyber Monday shoppers. Beyond becoming a force in the holiday consumer market, Cyber Monday is nearly as famous for lost productive work time. Many of the consumers that make purchases on Cyber Monday do so from their employer’s computers. 2011 Cyber Monday data suggests that nearly half of all workers in the United States plan to do some shopping during the work day on Cyber Monday and of those nearly 35% will spend more than 1 hour online. Some employers have blocked online viewing of certain sites that may cut into the Cyber Monday bottom line. Two thirds of the people employed in the United States admit to using their employer’s internet for personal usage and 22% of employers have fired an employee for using the internet for non work related activities.