Cyber Monday

Online shopping is huge, but local is still best for our economy

Everyone knows about Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving that is traditionally considered by real-world retailers as the busiest shopping day of the year.

Well, this is Cyber Monday, the official start of the online Christmas shopping season.

The first Monday after Thanksgiving has been Cyber Monday since 2005, when the National Retail Federation decided to coin a term for the day when people get back to work, rested after a long weekend, and start to shop and order holiday gifts from Internet merchants.

But these days, online shoppers are just about as likely to click the “buy” button on Black Friday as they are to wait for Cyber Monday.

Online Black Friday sales were about $8.9 billion, according to Adobe Analytics. And Adobe expects online retailers to rack up about $10 billion to $11 billion in sales today.

Overall, the Christmas shopping season is expected to generate nearly $840 billion this year between online and brick-and-mortar store sales.

The NRF expects more than 62 million people in the U.S. to shop online today. And they are using a surprising number of techniques to get the best deal—including monitoring social media sites like Facebook and group-buying sites to find many deals in one place.

All of that retail activity is good for the economy as a whole. We know many of you will be among them. That’s fine. But remember, the best way to stimulate our local economy is to shop with retailers right here in the Twin Cities.