Similar to Black Friday sales that began weeks before the unofficial after-Thanksgiving start to the holiday shopping season, online retailers say they, too, have seen Cyber Monday spending inch earlier into the season.
While that amounts to lower Cyber Monday sales for some local retailers, early online buying has risen. Even a Cyber Monday that's flat from 2009 can mean an increase in sales from an average Monday. Merely having an online presence on the increasingly popular day for holiday shoppers to find deals online can also result in increased sales year-round.
Spanx, Inc., the Atlanta-based purveyor of body-shaping undergarments, said 2009's Cyber Monday sales were 105 percent of sales on an average fall day that year. The private company wouldn't release specific figures about the importance of its online business, but CEO Laurie Ann Goldman said the Internet is one of the top three retailers of Spanx products.
On Cyber Monday, Spanx offered free shipping to online buyers. Goldman said the average buyer purchases two items during the holiday season.
"People are more inclined to try something or buy something if they know there's no risk," she said of the free shipping offer. "It makes it easier."
Cyber Monday, which got its name five years ago as office workers started shopping online during their first Monday back from the Thanksgiving holiday, has become a bigger component of the holiday shopping season. The National Retail Federation and Shop.org said they expected 106 million people to shop online that day.
By mid-afternoon on Monday, Spanx spokeswoman Maggie Adams said she expected the day's sales to be flat from 2009's Cyber Monday sales, even as sales from Black Friday through Sunday rose an additional 18 percent over what normal growth patterns would have predicted. In an e-mail, Adams said it showed that retailers and customers were both starting earlier.
Emily G's Jam of Love received three big orders by Monday afternoon, but Emily Myers said she had 15 sales between Thursday and Sunday, over what is usually a quieter period.
"It's not quite as busy as I thought," she said about Monday's traffic. "But with the weekend, now I'm feeling pretty good going into the holidays."
Myers said the orders over the weekend and on Cyber Monday have been larger than normal, indicating that people are buying her products as gifts. While the three-year-old company doesn't have a long Cyber Monday history, Myers said the day often represents a big increase in sales and can telegraph how December will be.
Normally, Ann Roth said, 25 percent of online sales at the shoe company that bears her name come on Cyber Monday, often through the purchase of gift certificates. Roth was traveling Monday and did not have access to that day's sales, but said Web traffic typically doubles that day. Even if people don't end up buying on Cyber Monday, she said, they learn about the existence of her products and are more likely to return and buy later.
Getting a retailer's name out there is part of the reason to offer Cyber Monday deals, said John Squire, chief strategy officer for IBM Coremetrics, which tracks online sales. Squire said Cyber Monday was on a path to show a 25-percent increase over 2009's sales figures.
OKAb., a sandal and spa shoe company in Atlanta, sees 6 percent of November's sales on Cyber Monday, while the day accounts for less than 1 percent of annual sales, spokeswoman Adina Neufeld said.
Margaret Bec, co-owner of online boutique Les Nouvelles, said she had high hopes for the day and was offering a number of sales to attract shoppers.
"It's an important day to highlight online retailers, it's an important day to do something on your site," she said. "We're on pins and needles all day long."
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