A 'Cyber Monday' Tech Shopping Primer

The Monday after Thanksgiving could be a bargain hunters' heyday this year, and you don't even have to leave the house. Not to be outdone by the brick-and-mortar retailers' Black Friday sales, online retailers will be offering deep discounts the following Monday, December 1, a day that's called "Cyber Monday."

Last year, consumers spent US$733 million on Cyber Monday, and it's expected to be even bigger this year. According to a survey by online shopping site Shopzilla for the National Retail Federation's Shop.org, nearly 84 percent of online retailers plan to have a Cyber Monday promotion on December 1. That's up from just 72 percent last year and zero percent in 2005, says Shop.org executive director Scott Silverman.

(Silverman's organization actually invented Cyber Monday in late 2005 as a gimmick to jump-start online sales in the holiday season. The media soon hyped it, and while it's not the biggest online shopping day of the year, it has certainly caught on among e-tailers.)

And there is evidence to suggest that online retailers will be trotting out even sweeter deals this year to compete for their share of consumers' 2008 holiday spending, although that spending is expected to be much smaller than last year, which set a record for online shopping. "Retailers this year will be very aggressive pricing-wise and promotion-wise," says TigerDirect VP of business development Bruce Matthews. "Cyber Monday was the biggest day of the year for us last year--bigger than Black Friday," he adds.

I suggest visiting three types of sites -- Cyber Monday sites, tech retailer sites, and deal aggregation sites -- on December 1 to find the best prices.

Before Cyber Monday, check out GottaDeal.com, which posts "leaked" Black Friday and Cyber Monday ads from many online tech retailers. Even better, you can also lurk at the site's Forum to find out about newly announced Cyber Monday deals as they come in. "I expect the online retailers to be sending an avalanche of info over the next 2-3 days and I'll be adding everything to that forum for our members to discuss," GottaDeal founder Brad Olson writes in an e-mail to PC World.

Sign up for ITworld's Daily newsletter
Follow ITworld on Twitter @IT_world

• Email
• Print
• Share
  • Slashdot
  • Digg
  • Stumble
  • Reddit
  • Newsvine