$1.5b to be spent online on Cyber Monday

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Black Friday is a distant memory. Small Business Saturday is long gone. Now, it's Cyber Monday's turn.

Cyber Monday, coined in 2005 by a shopping trade group that noticed a spike in online sales on the Monday after the Thanksgiving holiday when people returned to their work computers, is the next in a line of days that stores are counting on to jump-start the holiday shopping season.

This year's Cyber Monday is expected to be the biggest online shopping day of the year for the third year in a row. According to research firm comScore, US citizens are expected to spend $1.5 billion, up from $1.25 billion last year, on Cyber Monday as retailers ramp up deals to get shoppers to click on their websites.

How well retailers do on Cyber Monday will offer insight into US citizens' evolving shopping habits. With the growth in high-speed Internet access and the wide and increasing use of smartphones and tablet computers, people are relying less on their work computers to shop than they did when Shop.org, the digital division of trade group The National Retail Federation, coined the term "Cyber Monday".

As a result, the period between the Thanksgiving holiday on Thursday and Cyber Monday has become busy for online shopping as well. Indeed, IBM Benchmark, which tracks online sales, said on Thanksgiving, a day that historically had not been big for online shopping, online sales this year rose 17.4 percent over 2011. Of that, mobile shopping, or shopping on smartphones and tablets, rose 18.3 percent. Online sales on Black Friday were up 20.7 percent.

For the overall holiday season, comScore predicts online sales will be up 17 percent to $43.4 billion. And the research firm expects online sales to surpass 10 percent of total retail spending this holiday season.

The National Retail Federation estimates that overall retail sales in November and December will be up 4.1 percent this year to $586.1 billion.

But as other days become popular for online shopping, Cyber Monday may lose some of its appeal. To be sure, Cyber Monday hasn't always been the biggest online shopping day. In fact, up until three years ago, that title was historically held on the last day shoppers can order items with standard shipping rates and get them delivered before Christmas. That day usually falls in late December.

Even though Cyber Monday is expected to be the biggest shopping day this year, industry watchers say it could just be a matter of time before other days take that ranking.

Questions:

1. When was the term ‘Cyber Monday’ coined?

2. Which holiday does Cyber Monday follow?

3. How much were online sales up by on Black Friday?

Answers:

1. In 2005.

2. Thanksgiving.

3. 20.7 percent.

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About the broadcaster:

Emily Cheng is an editor at China Daily. She was born in Sydney, Australia and graduated from the University of Sydney with a degree in Media, English Literature and Politics. She has worked in the media industry since starting university and this is the third time she has settled abroad - she interned with a magazine in Hong Kong 2007 and studied at the University of Leeds in 2009.