It’s Cyber Monday, the unofficial holiday of online retail.  The term Cyber Monday was first used in 2005, after e-tailers reported a big spike in website traffic the Monday after Thanksgiving 2004.  The reasoning was that shoppers would browse the brick-and-mortar stores over the weekend, and then use the high-speed connection at their offices when they returned to work on Monday to get the rest of the items on their list.   (At what cost in lost productivity?)

Now, with more and more people having high-speed Internet at home, I think the whole ‘waiting to shop at work’ angle is diminishing.  Still, it probably makes sense for a lot of people to do their online shopping without risk of family-members looking over their shoulder.

Online retailers have quickly latched on to their big day, with nearly 90% of online stores offering some sort of promotion.  There are plenty of deals to be had, and it’s estimated that over 80 million people will be shopping.

If just 1% of those people were shopping for shoes, and just 1% of those used Shoes ‘R Us… it would probably crash the system.  But it would be fun while it lasted!

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