Cyber Monday, which originally began as an online extension to the huge Thanksgiving sales weekend, has now become a full week event for some retailers. As online shopping becomes commonplace for American consumers, businesses are looking to target shoppers looking to avoid Black Friday door-buster sales. Figures from IBM Smarter Commerce showed that Cyber Monday sales rose by 30 percent this year, showing a steady trend after the 33 percent growth in 2011.
According to research firm Comscore, Amazon was the weekend’s biggest winner, having been the most-visited retail site on Black Friday. The online retailer will continue its Cyber Monday promotions through the week. Several brick and mortar businesses have also reinforced their online efforts, with department stores seeing a 43 percent increase in sales from last year. Online sales accounted for a total of $1.04 billion over the holiday weekend, with an additional 1.5 billion expected to come in on Monday alone. Total sales are projected to reach $43.4 billion by the end of the holiday season.
Americans showed their renewed faith with their Black Friday and Cyber Monday purchases, reflecting the highest levels of consumer confidence since February of 2008. The Conference Board revealed that its consumer confidence reached 73.7 in November, the highest it’s been since the onset of the recession. The rise in consumer confidence will likely lead to a strong holiday season, as Americans continue to recover from economic turmoil.
“We expect this to be our biggest holiday season ever,” Amazon spokesman Scott Stanzel said in a video released Monday. “We think there’s much transparency in retail these days,” he added. “People can get the information they want, they can seek out the lowest prices. There’s a lot of competition for that consumer dollar.”
The news has also reinforced the strength of the U.S. dollar, as it rose against the euro by about half a cent on Monday.
