Retailers are always looking for an excuse to kick Christmas off early, and with the fragile economy hitting shop owners hard, having a good Christmas season is even more important than ever.

Online shop owners are not exempt from these pressures either and while High Street shops are squeezing the most out of Christmas by starting their festive seasons earlier each year, online retailers may have a new weapon in their arsenal this year.

Dubbed “Cyber Monday”, it is a phenomenon that originated in the USA and is said to be one of the busiest online shopping days of the year, with people seeing it as the natural start of the holiday shopping season. In the USA this timing is based on the fact that it comes on the first Monday after Thanksgiving, the traditional start of the holiday season.

You might think that its relation to Thanksgiving makes this an all American concept, but cast your eye back to last November on your Analytics package and you might well notice a rather pronounced spike in your traffic. If you run an e-commerce site or a gift shop, there is a very good chance that this spike will have appeared on the very same day the world over, Monday 29th November.

A Worldwide Event?

So how did this happen even if you are not in the USA? Is Thanksgiving the reason that this date gets so many people in the holiday mood, is it down to marketing or is it just a natural date to kick start the holiday season? Let’s take a look.

Whether you are in the USA or not, you would have to live under a rock to not know that Thanksgiving is taking place. News bulletins show clips of the parades, pubs and clubs use it as an excuse to run promotions and it is an event that if not celebrated worldwide, is certainly known about across the planet. The fact that it is seen as the start of the Christmas season in the States may well act as an international trigger for the festive season.

Good Marketing?

With shopping events such as Cyber Monday and Black Friday there is always a strong marketing element that helps to push things along. Once a day is given a title then retailers don’t need asking twice to use it as an excuse to run promotions, push their advertising campaigns and make the most of the free publicity that the day will inevitably gain through media coverage. So how much of this phenomenon is natural and how much of it is orchestrated by PR teams that are desperate to get their Christmas off to a good start? Even if international customers are not aware of the concept of Cyber Monday, retailers may well use it as a time to start their promotions so people will be participating in that event even if they are not aware of it.

A Natural Start?

Despite all the marketing and the presence of Thanksgiving, is it possible that Cyber Monday could just be a natural phenomenon that occurs due to its proximity to Christmas? This is just the period where television stations start publishing their Christmas schedules, office parties are confirmed and December is only a few days away, so it seems to be a natural point for people to start their Christmas shopping. Mondays tend to be a busy day for online retailers every week, so surely it just makes sense that this one would see a peak in sales?

In reality, all three reasons help to play a part in Cyber Monday’s international potential. Thanksgiving is just one of many reminders that Christmas is fast approaching and this in turn will put people into a festive mind-set. Once marketers start to notice that this day is getting quite a lot of visitors to the site, it is only natural to start running promotions, stick a title on it and try to make the most out of this peak in customer interest. Then once this becomes an established “event”, people will be drawn into participating through heightened advertising and increased media attention.

Despite the fact that you might not have heard of the term, if you see a peak in visits to your site during late November then you are already participating in Cyber Monday. With the inevitable increase in media attention that this will bring around the world, this may well become an event that you need to pay more attention to if your festive season is going to get off to the best possible start, wherever you are in the world.

Author Bio:
Alan Grainger is an in-house B2B web marketer in the corporate Christmas gifts sector and manages SEO for The Corporate Gifts Company. He writes articles exploring the issues faced by the B2B and B2C web marketer, giving an “in the trenches” view from an in-house SEO department. Follow him @alanjgrainger.